Resolution Incursus
by bograt
Summary: Nymphadora's life at Hogwarts during the later years. Covers her friendship with Charlie, her education and the difficulties of being an intelligent teenage girl.
1. incursus

**I was told, quite recently, after completing chapter 8 that JKR has indeed confirmed that Tonks was in Hufflepuff, and not Gryffindor. So, to satisfy my inner perfectionist, I've changed a few things, nothing drastic, the story is still the same.**

**Incursus (to attack the mind)**

_**August 1986.**_

Her mother was banging at the bathroom door, but Nymphadora ignored her, staring at her body in the full-length mirror. Something was very, very different, and she wasn't quite sure how it had happened - and so quickly without her knowing.

She had fallen asleep the night before and simply woken up this morning, jumped into the shower and when she got out…

"Nymphadora! Would you open this door! Your father and I need to get to work!"

She stared at herself one last time in the mirror, at a loss of what to do, and wrapped herself in her dressing gown.

Clicking open the door, she turned to face her open mouthed mother.

She was dragged by the wrist down the stairs and into the kitchen to be displayed in front of her father, who gaped at her over his cereal. "Nymph…" he started, "how did you…?"

"Did you dye it!?" her mother screeched, tugging at a strand of long, pink hair as if hoping it would merely fall off, like a wig.

"What? No…I don't know how…I just….woke up and it…"

"Did you use magic?" her father asked, calmly she thought as he attended his cereal again. "Because you know Nymphadora, it can be very dangerous and threatening to your school li-"

"I didn't!" she yelled, backing away from her mother and running her hands through her hair. Thoughts of expulsion, arrest and even her mother shaving her head flew through her mind and she was desperate to keep her new, unexpected bubblegum pink hair.

"what will we tell the school?" her mother demanded, like this was any of her fault. "we'll have to re-dye it! You can't possibly go back to school looking like that!"

Nymphadora sighed, wrapped her dressing gown a little tighter and stormed up stairs.

One look in the mirror showed her hair to have changed into vivid turquoise.

"MUUUUUUUUMMMMM!!!"

_**1987, Nymphadora's 4**__**th**__** year of Hogwarts. **_

She had been told her "talent" was not to be flaunted in front of the other students, and that she had no objection to. It was the random bursts of emotion that came with being a fourteen-year-old girl that affected her control over her ability most.

She was, from lack of a better word, a teenager. She was moody, she was introspective, she had strong and justified opinions on how the world worked and she hated how she was alone in her thinking.

And she was very, very alone.

She lay silent, staring up at the scarlet canopy above her bed listening to other girls gentle breathing. Today had been one of her worst at Hogwarts, having left her humiliated and angry. She had fled the scene, just managing to contain her changing hair colour until she had reached her dormitory, yanked her curtains shut and let her short spikes turn a bright, raspberry pink. She had stayed there since, unsleeping, silent and waiting, _pleading_, for someone who cared enough to come and see if she was all right.

At Three thirty in the morning, the girls she shared a room with had come in, prepared for bed and fallen asleep without mentioning the events that had happened that day, or even corresponded with her in the smallest way. No mention of a sorry at all.

Nymphadora couldn't quite figure out why she cared that they didn't, she supposed it was because a girl of her age was expected to be friends with the _other_ girls her age, simply because of their familiarity. When she returned to her family home in the holidays, her mother always asked how the other girls were doing, what they had been up to during the school term. It was always a plural, never addressing Nymphadora as the singular person she was.

Five hours later, when her alarm bell rang, Nymphadora rolled from her bed into the shower and slipped down into the common room before her roommates even woke. It was a morning ritual; she would pack her bag for the days lessons and eat her breakfast in silence before the rest of the school had barely contemplated crawling out of the warm covers. She would finish her breakfast and take her school books up to the library until half nine when classes started to get in a bit of extra revision, and then wait for her first class to start.

When her classes finished, she would head to the library for a few hours work, finish her homework and then head down for dinner. She would spend her evening in the Hufflepuff common room or in her dormitory, reading, revising, and researching the next day's lessons.

She loved to learn. It was her life, to absorb all the knowledge she could. Not to say she didn't find it a challenge, and at some points frustrating when she couldn't grasp a theory or a spell ahead of all the other students. But she had a good rapport with her teachers and often visited them after or between classes to gain a little extra knowledge on the subject at hand, or indeed any subject that interested her.

Letters from home were frequent but not encouraging. Her father was neutral, supportive at times but expected a repeat in history from his daughter in grades, despite the subjects becoming more intense and challenging. Her mother was a constant source of enthusiasm for her daughters self esteem. This being fabulous, except that she became angry when Nymphadora claimed she couldn't make friends easily or didn't want to agree with the other students because of conflicting views.

Her first lesson on a Wednesday morning was transfiguration. Before the bell had even rung, she had set herself up in the classroom, he books all laid out across her desk in the order she was expecting to use them. The quill, sharpened with ink at the ready was placed next to the parchment on the desk. She waited; chin in hand, experimenting with her nails, changing the colour, then the pattern. If she concentrated, she could just about manage a union flag on her thumbnails. The only problem was, she couldn't quite distinguish between her nail and her skin, and the tips of her fingers usually fit the same pattern.

The first students filed in and she was forced to cease her random shifting. Keeping a lid on her changes became harder every day, as she learnt subconsciously to match her appearance to her moods. But she was becoming more skilled in her transformations and although harder to keep and control, she had learnt how to keep them for longer, hours if she tried.

A snigger caught her attention, as a group of Gryffindor girls took the last row of the classroom. She ignored them, turning her back and inconspicuously changing her fingernails longer and a sunny, Hufflepuff yellow. Without even noticing, she scraped her fingers across the parchment in front of her, scowling into her textbooks.

"…And did you hear? Completely soaked through, and admitting everything…"

Another stream of giggling. Frustrated, she turned to glare at them, and just for a moment she felt her eyes flash before she was gone from the classroom, her books under one arm and her quills gripped in her left hand. She was sure the girls would give a painfully accurate description of her leaving to Professor McGonagall and she could visit her in her office at break and give her apologies. But right now, Nymphadora needed to be anywhere but there.

As she reached the library doors, she wrenched them open and tore off between the shelves. Just as she reached the sections on muggle studies, a hand caught her arm and held her back.

"Why aren't you in lessons?" Bill Weasley asked, glaring down at her, sternness in his voice but his eyes softened when she turned to glare back at him.

"ask your brother!" she snapped and wrenched her arm clean of him, before dashing off between the shelves.


	2. Charlie

"What did you _do_?"

A lean, muscular hand slipped out to stop him exiting the staircase, but Charlie merely ducked under it and stood back from his brother. "I didn't do anything."

Bill raised an eyebrow and tucked a stray lock of ginger hair behind his ear. He had refused haircuts all year and it was just stretching behind his ear. Charlie couldn't understand why he had chosen to grow it, but the girls sure seemed keen.

"Yes you did – to that girl, the one with the mousy hair." He raised his hand palm down to his shoulder, "'bout yay high, is always painting her nails. Hufflepuff."

"Tonks? I did nothing to her." Charlie ducked away, colour rushing to his ears, but he was once again blocked by his older brother.

"Well she seemed pretty upset at you yesterday, and she's missing lessons because of it." In a tone very akin to his mother, Bill knit his eyebrows together and said, "When did you turn into a bully Charlie?"

"I didn't do any-"

"Don't give me that crap, Charlie, you or one of your little friends has done something and as far as I'm concerned it stops now. You cannot jeopardise another student's education because of some stupid game you're playing, or whatever it is you've done. It's low. And I can't believe my brother is a part of it." Without another word Bill turned on his heel and climbed from the common room, without even giving Charlie a chance to defend himself.

He gaped, open mouthed and not quite sure what had happened at the portrait hole, before following his brother into the corridor.

"I didn't do anything to her!" he yelled, and a few students turned their heads to look at him distractedly, but Bill ignored him. "I didn't!" he repeated as he caught him up through the crowd and yanked at his arm. "Why do you always assume the worst of me?" he demanded. "Why can't you listen to my story first? It isn't fair, I don't even know who that girl is, really. She never speaks to anyone, she never comes to the parties she just _reads_."

Bill, apparently not impressed, did not even adnowledge him with a look when he said, "well have you even tried to speak with her?"

"Not me personally," he stuttered, "but the girls have, and they say she's really-"

As they reached the great hall, Bill pointed, "There's your opportunity."

She was just getting up from the table, books in hand and taking a last swig of pumpkin juice. She kept her eyes to the floor as she swung her bag over her shoulder and made for the door.

"What, now?" Charlie pleaded as he spotted his friends waving over at him from the table.

"Yes, now."

A prod in the back and Charlie was forced to cross her path. She stopped and looked at him. He bit his lip and ran his fingers through his hair, "uhm, hey-"

"You're in my way." She said simply, and stared at him.

"It's just-"

"I'll hex you." She said, and shrugged, taking out her wand and adjusting her books and bag to accommodate it.

Charlie, needless to say, moved quickly out of the way.

As she walked away, Charlie yelled after her, "I'm sorry!"

She either didn't notice or just continued to ignore him and kept walking. Bill emerged at his shoulder and chewed on a piece of toast, "she really doesn't like you," he observed.

As much as he hated it, Charlie couldn't help but wonder what he'd done wrong. He had never so much as spoken with her, but that, he wondered, might be the very problem.

Regardless, she was not willing to let him talk and he was by no means going to force himself on her for the sake of curiosity. She was top of the class in most subjects, and wouldn't by any means take her on in a fight.

Bill, however, seemed reluctant to let the matter drop. One mealtime when Charlie emerged from the great hall, Bill excused himself from a group of friends and caught up to his brother. "There's a hogsmeade weekend coming up soon."

"Yuh huh."

"So why don't you take that girl? Tongs?"

"It's Tonks, and no." Charlie snapped. "Look, she does not want to be friends with me. She hates everyone; she never wants to talk and spends all her time in the library. For her to even emerge for a social event would be a freaking miracle of nature!"

Bill smirked. "If you don't ask her, I'll tell mum you've got a girlfriend."

"Oh you wouldn't."

"And I'll let Fred and George play with your broom."

"How dare-"

"Promise you'll ask her."

Charlie sighed and rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll ask her. But I find one twig out of place on my broom next summer…"

Second period, mid way through history of magic, and Nymphadora was surprised to find the girls from Gryffindor placed next to her. She though no more of it, passing it off as nothing more than one of their plans to make her jealous or paranoid, and returned to making notes.

"So we were thinking, Nymphadora - " her head flicked up. She was being addressed, and it was so very strange to hear her name spoken out loud by someone other than a teacher or her parents.

"Yes?" she asked tentatively, as if approaching a poisonous flower or beast that would turn its beauty on her and lash out.

"How would you like to come into hogsmeade with us this weekend?" one of the girls finished.

She stared. And then stared a little more, before returning to her notes.

"Tch!" the girls turned their back on her and huffed.

She flared. "Why would I want to go to hogsmeade with you anyway?"

A few seconds later she turned to see one of the girls walk to the back of the class and whisper in Charlie's ear. He looked deflated, but grinned and laid back in his chair. Honestly. Was she the only person who took notes in this lesson?

Charlie then stood up and approached her. With a moments hesitance and a glance towards the back of the class, he sat down next to her. "Hey…Nymphadora."

"Hey Weasel." She replied, never taking her quill from the parchment and still scribbling down notes.

"So. Um. What you up to this weekend?"

Giving up, she set her quill down on the desk and folded her arms. "Weasel, what do you want?"

"I was," he spluttered, "just…wondering…"

"Wondering what?" she spat, "look. Enough of the silly games. Why are you so eager all of a sudden to get to know me? Is it some silly bet? Some stupid way of embarrassing me? Because it won't work!"

"Would you like to go for a drink at the three broomsticks?" he asked plainly.

"I? What?" she waved him off. "_No_. Get lost weasel."

"I'll even buy it for you. You don't even have to sit with me, you can just take the drink and go."

He was watching her intently, and she almost felt herself cave.

"Not a chance weasel. Now get lost." It was better that way. People like Charlie only wanted to get her hurt.

Slowly, he picked himself up and wandered back to his friends, feeling strangely let down. He couldn't grasp quite what it was that had infuriated him most about her ignoring him, but he wasn't so much insulted as he was hurt. She was enigmatic, and a complete mystery to him, and if only for principle he became determined that she would accompany him and his friends to Hogsmeade.


	3. Bill

The ground was hard with ice and the first snows had just begun to fall as Saturday arrived and Nymphadora began to emerge from bed. After dressing and showering, she wrapped her long yellow scarf around her neck, pocketed her hat and gloves and bounced down the stairs.

Her mother had sent her ten galleons the night before to spend as she pleased on Christmas presents and festive novelties. She was late rising that morning having been up into the early hours of the morning reading. Nevertheless, she would let nothing dampen her spirits that morning, and she headed down for breakfast with a smile on her face, humming a song she'd heard on the radio the night before.

Not even the sight of Charlie and his friends pressed together around the Gryffindor table could take the smile off her face, and she happily poured herself a glass of pumpkin juice and helped herself to a plate of eggs.

A tall figure sat down beside her with familiar red hair. "'Ello Nymphadora." Bill said, tucking his bag at his feet and helping himself to a plate of bacon. "You looking forward to today?"

"Uh. Sure" she said confused as to why the Weasley's were suddenly taking such an interest in her well-being and above all else students sat in other houses tables was a rare sight. This was no random greeting – he had chosen to sit with her.

"Bacon?" he asked politely, offering her the plate.

"No. Veggie. Ta." She tried to ignore his presence and make it known by picking up a book from her bag and opening it.

"Watcha reading?"

Indignantly, she closed the book. "It's a story about dragon tamers."

He put down his fork and reached for it, "oh cool, looks interesting."

Nymphadora couldn't quite believe what she was seeing when the eldest Weasley opened it to the first page and began to read. After a few pages, he placed it on the table between them and said, "that's awesome, I'll have to check it out after you're finished with it."

"Oh. Well actually it's mine, but," she swallowed and took a breath, "I'd be happy to lend it to you if you're really anxious for it and not just trying to make small talk. I've read it a dozen times, I really don't need to read it again."

"Oh hey, that'd be great." And he took the book and slipped it in his bag and smiled at her. Actually, graciously, smiled at her, and she felt a rush of gratitude towards him that he would consider her, when he was two years her senior, a match for breakfast conversation.

"Where you going for the holidays?" he asked, returning to his bacon and adding sausages to his plate.

"Home to my parents," Nymphadora answered, abandoning her breakfast. It suddenly didn't taste as good and the excitement of talking with someone, anyone, about her plans and hobbies was enthralling. "How about you?"

"Oh, the same. 'Cept with as many brothers and a sister as I have, it's not going to be a quiet affair."

They both laughed and then suddenly, sickenly too soon, he turned serious. "Listen, darling," -she squirmed at the endearment,- "I just want to know what's going on between you and my brother. He's been claiming he's done nothing, but I wanted to ask you so I can kick his-"

She averted her eyes, snagged at the change of tone. A glorious, sunny conversation turned sour and she felt her fingernails turn the slightest shade of turquoise.

"I have to go, I forgot my-" she got up, not even bothering with ending the excuse and picked herself up from the table. Then, pausing, she waited and cursed herself for what she was about to do.

"Do you have any idea," she asked softly, "how I feel?"

He raised his eyebrows and she continued.

"Tell Charlie I'll meet him for that drink," she said, and walked.

Noon came and went before Charlie emerged in the pub, windblown and rosy from the snow. She was perched on a bar stool and he hesitantly climbed up beside her and smiled.

She had gone out on a whim on the basis of pure curiosity, wondering what was at the bottom of this. She decided to play it low for a while, ride the storm and see what he was planning, and when she found out she would be prepared. Nymphadora was not the type of girl to be caught out.

"What'd you want Weasley?" she asked, taking a sip in a way she hoped was nonchalant and glancing at him over the lip of her glass.

He blinked. "You told Bill-"

"I told Bill to agree to you meeting me here because I'm interested to know why you're so interested in _me_ all of a sudden." She rolled her eyes. "Even now I'm not sure why I'm wasting my time."

Charlie shifted in his seat. "Look. What have I done to you that you hate me so much?" when she opened her mouth to protest angrily, he silenced her with a hand. "I know we've never really spoken. And I know we have nothing in common, but what is it you hate so much about me?"

Taking a breath, fuming, she stood up and clutched her bag to her chest. "Why do I hate you? How about last week, with the bucket and the veritaserum? Your _friends…_those giggling, insulting, bad examples of my gender…" she sucked in a breath. "_Do you have any idea what it is like to share a dormitory with them_?"

He blinked several times and sat back, chewing on his lip thoughtfully. "What bucket?" he asked.

She shot him a look. "Oh don't try that."

"No I'm serious!" he pleaded, "I have no idea what you're talking about! Veritaserum, buckets, all news to me."

It wasn't that she didn't expect this sort of behaviour from him, but found it oddly surprising seeing as he had invited her here and started demanding explanations when she had done nothing but keep to herself. He was the one to cause problems; he was the ringleader behind all of this.

"Just…. just get lost, Weasley."

"But I didn't do anything!"

For the second time he watched someone's retreating back merge into the crowd.

She was wandering the streets alone when Charlie sidled up to her and blocked her path. Just a few stray hairs peaked from the rim of his bobble hat and his scarf was pulled right up to the bottom of his chin. He was rubbing his hands from the cold where he had no gloves and was blowing on them as he spoke.

"Ok, maybe I did plan it. But it was just meant to be a joke, nothing more serious than that." He stepped to the side to block her again. "I never meant to hurt you, I barely know who you are. I can't even pronounce your first name."

"And that gives you the right to make me miserable, does it?" she said, ashamed that her voice cracked towards the end of her sentence. "Why am I such a target, when I've done nothing, _nothing_ to you." Without looking back she turned on her heel and yelled over her shoulder, "and you can call me _Tonks_!"


	4. Quidditch

Nymphadora spent the remainder of the week away from her dormitory as much as she could manage. She slept in the common room if she could; often waking up to the house elves spreading a blanket over her and on one occasion had been brought a glass of milk and a plate of cookies from the kitchens. But the moment she opened her eyes, the elves scattered, and she was left alone to mumble an empty thank you to the deserted common room.

Charlie tried, on several occasions, to talk to her, but learnt his lesson one Friday night when she sent him back to the Gryffindor tower with a black eye that was in no way magic induced.

She was reluctant to return to the common room that night, and waited in the library. She was kicked out in the later hours and forced to return to her dormitory in favour of the loud crowds below. She closed her curtains and cast a silencing spell on them so her roommates would not notice her presence and disturb her and continued with the days homework.

It was the Hufflepuff-Gryffindor match the next day, so the whole House was overly excited. Nymphadora felt her privacy had been breached every time the entire house collided in one space, like she was on display. Whispers and sniggers followed her through the halls and corridors.

She placed her book on her pillow next to her and lay down on the bed. With one deep, slow sigh, her features changed as they had been urging to do all day. Her fingernails shortened slightly and turned a bright turquoise, her hair shortened to her ears from its ponytail and the band fell onto the sheets by her shoulder. She felt her eyes flicker, just for a second, and knew the pigment had changed ever so slightly purple. Her hair, starting at the scalp, became warm, and she felt her eyes screw up in concentration as she willed it to become bright, bubblegum pink.

Keeping a normal form all day could become tiring. If she was exhausted, unable to sleep the night before or angry, her appearance tried to change spontaneously, and often had to excuse herself to the bathroom so to keep a lid on her emotions. She longed for the day when she could wake up and not have to worry about the colour of her hair, because no one could become angry or tormenting about it. She longed particularly for the day when she could wake up and think of a colour, and could keep that shape or form all day, weeks even.

She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, but she wanted to be able to be herself throughout it.

Saturday morning was as predictable as any other Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match. The Gryffindor team was so poor that within the first ten minutes of the match they had flattened them so badly; it was almost painful to watch. Somehow, beyond her understanding, Charlie still emerged, as some fallen hero from the whole ordeal and was lifted onto the shoulders of his fellow Gryffindor students, and passed around the great hall.

Nymphadora, of course, stayed a fair distance away as if stupidity was contagious and was in fear of catching a disease that made her prone to worshipping Charlie Weasley.

It was when someone tapped her shoulder that she realised she had been scowling at him. It was Bill; of course, she almost knew it would be him because he was the only person who bothered to talk to her.

"How're you holding up?" he asked gently.

She wasn't sure how he knew something was different or wrong, but it made her uncomfortable.

"Not sitting with anyone tonight?" he asked casually, glancing up and down the tables.

She shook her head. The other girls giggling and shrieking had forced her out of her dormitory and their constant remarks about the way she dressed, her lack of makeup and bland shoulder length hair had induced in her an anger she could not control if she stayed up there much longer. The great hall, where she was ignored, became the lesser of two evils.

"You want someone to sit with?" he asked softly.

"I-" she opened her mouth to refuse and thought about it for a second. "What?"

He stood up and beckoned to her. "Come sit with us." He nodded towards a group of sixth years. "We've got butterbeer and sweets from Honeyduke's." he smiled in understanding. "You don't even have to talk, just sit and listen. Or read. Whatever."

She opened her mouth to reply, but no sound came out and she wasn't sure what her reply would be if she did answer. She blinked, and looked at him as if he had two heads.

"Is this a joke?"

"C'mon love," he grabbed her hand and pulled her across the room. "You won't get hurt. You can do exactly the same as you are here, bring your book."

She was forced into a seat next to Bill in the centre of the group and she sunk down on the bench in an effort to avoid any attention being drawn to her. They continued on as if she wasn't there, like they could sense she felt inadequate next to their group dynamic. A girl with long, shining dark hair smiled at her and pressed a butterbeer into her hand. "Joanna." She added.

"Tonks." She replied. Using her first name seemed so personal and close, and made her feel uncomfortable.

"What book you reading?" she asked, and flicked her hair over her shoulder. She eyed Bill and smiled, and Nymphadora couldn't help but think the girl was only doing this to impress him.

"It's about the muggle genocide of the sixth century." She shrugged. "It's getting boring though."

"How come?" one of the boys asked.

She shrunk under the attention and hugged the book to her chest and took a breath. "It's all facts and figures. Nothing really literary about it."

There was a commotion towards the other side of the table, and Charlie was lifted onto the shoulders of five or so boys and elated cheers erupted around him. Bill rolled his eyes and took a sip of his butterbeer. "That's going to give him a real ego trip." He took a sweet from a bag on the table and popped it in his mouth. Then he picked himself up, dusted his robes off and marched over to his brother. In one fluid motion he took his brother from the boys, hurled him over his shoulder and dragged Charlie across the hall.

Then, quite heavily, he dropped him on the flagstone floor, a foot away from Nymphadora. His brother threw him a bottle of butterbeer and sat back down.

Charlie rubbed his backside and glared at him. "What was that for?!"

"You need to cool it." Bill said sternly. "You won a Quidditch match, you didn't cure a disease."

Charlie noticed her staring at him, in shock at what she had just seen. The arrogant, selfish, scheming head of the pack she knew was reduced to laughter, sitting on the floor at his brother's feet, swigging butterbeer.

"It was just a bit of fun." He said brightly. "What can I say? I'm a hero!" he laughed and helped himself to his brother's supply of sweets. Then he glanced at her. "Hey Nymphadora."

She wasn't sure what to say to that –whether it was sarcastic or genuine, so she didn't answer and sipped her drink for something to do.

Bill watched them closely. "Tonks is joining us tonight. We were just discussing literature over dinner."

She wasn't sure why he was doing her a favour, but Bill and his friends seemed like the only ones intent on doing so.

Charlie sat up and tried to look interested. "Oh yeh? Watcha reading?"

She held up the title but didn't elaborate. A second later, she was starring at the crinkled yellow pages in the book, ignoring him, ignoring Bill. She was wishing she had never come across the vast expanse of social groups and sat with them, regardless of how nice they were acting.

Charlie became engaged in a rerun of the events of the Quidditch match to a pretty girl sat next to her. She tried not to listen - she had avoided the match, despite a personal love of Quidditch, spawned from when she was home during the holidays and her father would get out the broomsticks from the shed, and they would throw a quaffle to each other from ten feet up in the air – yet she was drawn to the commentary and Charlie's vivid, heroic description.

Bill fidgeted, appearing uncharacteristically boyish. "I do miss Quidditch," he added to Nymphadora as he caught her eye, "we play it all the time in the holidays, but there's not a chance here."

She missed it too. And never once had she played with more than one person – her mother was uninterested, and her father was never very good to begin with. And with muggle friends and rare associations with other wizarding children, she had never played amongst friends.

"Yeh, it's a shame the Quidditch pitch isn't open to the public use during the week," a mousy haired, tall, rather good-looking boy suggested. He caught her eye and winked.

Blushing, she turned away.

"We could always go down to the pitch anyway." Charlie suggested, sitting up straight from the floor, eyes bright and a grin across his freckled face.

Bill raised an eyebrow. "No Charles."

"No one would know-"

"Oh c'mon Bill, what's the worst that could happen?" the mousy haired lad asked. He looked her in the eye again; "you'll come with us right?"

Before she could refuse, Bill had sighed and held up his hands in defeat. "This is on your back when we get caught."

"We'll tell McGonagall we drugged and dragged you down."

They all stood at once, and Nymphadora looked up in shock at the immediate group agreement. They seemed to follow each other in their actions, and Charlie with them, all excited at once at the possibility of breaking the rules.

Most shocking, however, was when the mousy haired boy offered her his hand to help her stand. She stared at it, then at his face and back to the hand. He grinned, and on impulse, without even thinking about it, she took it.

It was only when she was standing opposite him with their hands clasped that she realised, let go, and started towards her table again.

"Aren't you coming?" he asked her.

Nymphadora seemed to wilt under his gaze and grabbed her bag for something to do. She took a deep breath.

"Yeah I'll come."


	5. Skelegrow

**Hey everyone.**

**I gotta say, reviews are the only thing that keep us writer's writing. I'm sure most writers out there would agree with me. So it's simple, if I get few or no reviews, I'll stop writing.**

**Please review, it's taken a long time to develop and write this story, and much effort on my part. It takes a minute compared to my hours.**

The pitch was dark and empty. Bill, herself and three of Bill's friends stood in the middle of the pitch whilst Charlie went to find the balls and brooms from the supply cupboard. She stood a fair distance from the group, pretending to be interested with something on the stands.

"I'm Jack," someone announced.

She turned. The mousy haired, tall boy was stood before her, hand extended.

"Nymphadora." She replied, before pausing, "Tonks, that is."

She didn't take his hand, and it stretched the space between them. Nervously, they laughed, and his hand fell to his side awkwardly.

Charlie returned with armfuls of brooms and the box of training balls. Ungracefully, he dumped them on the floor and Nymphadora became so excited about the prospect of Quidditch her hair became a vivid turquoise. She was glad for the darkness covering it up.

She was handed a broomstick by Charlie, and didn't hesitate to mount it and rush away from the scene below. The comforting, rush of adrenaline that came with flying washed over her and for a second, she closed her eyes. Pushing the broom down, she hurtled towards the ground, grabbed a bat from Charlie's fingers and in one fluid motion she was up in the air again.

The feeling of forbidden, lonely flying was exuberating. She was rusty, and a little unsure of herself on an unfamiliar broom, but she felt like she had touched heaven when she soared above the grounds. Below her, someone released the balls and a bludger hurtled towards her. Throwing her weight forwards, she hit the ball with as much force as she could muster from fifty foot above the ground and with no hands to cling onto her broomstick. It plummeted downwards towards the ground, and someone whacked it back towards her.

Without thinking, as the next bludger whistled across her flight path, she gripped her bat and sent it flying towards Charlie. With a satisfying yelp, it flew narrowly past his ear. "Hey-!" he ducked another shot. "Tonks, what the hell are you up to?"

Bill and all his friends seemingly thought she was just playing, that Charlie was posing a threat to her team and that she was merely in the spirit of Quidditch. She revelled in it, batting the bludger back and forth towards him. She wasn't even sure why she was doing it. Once given the chance to gain a smidgen of revenge, she snatched it, thinking of all the times she had been ignored, ridiculed, bullied, tripped up or cursed in the last four years. She hated him, for everything he had done, everything his friends had done and every fantastic grade he achieved with seemingly no effort. He was intelligent, loved and respected and she hated every single thing about him.

"You're nuts! What do you think you're doing?" he yelled, as the second bludger made another path towards him, skimming past his right ear.

She scowled. "What am I doing? You're the one who chooses to embarrass me on every occasion!" –_thud-_ "You're the one who feels the need to humiliate at every opportunity. What's wrong with me?" –_smack_- "What's wrong with you. You've made my life a misery. I _hate_ you. _I despise the very ground you walk on_."

In one movement she sent the bludger sailing across the sky towards him, dead on target. Charlie leaped on it, hugging it to his stomach as he was thrown back five feet and landed roughly on his rear end. Angry, and still holding onto the wicked ball, he stumbled to his feet and leaped for the remaining bat, just as the other bludger hurtled towards him. Letting go of the first, he swung forwards and sent it careering towards her.

Her broom rocked, and she was knocked to the ground from twenty foot upwards, landing awkwardly and sickeningly on her left arm.

The Quidditch pitch was silent, a few seconds of shock before everyone was beside her. She lay unconscious, unmoving on the soft muddy ground.

Charlie felt numb as he watched Bill lift her up, swinging her into his arms.

He noted dully that throughout her anger, she never once raised her voice.

The world was white, and it hurt.

She felt she should have treated the situation more dramatically, by opening her eyes and letting out a mournful groan, or touching her brow and mumbling "oh my head", but she merely opened her eyes and blinked.

Then she heard the last thing she wanted to hear in her situation. A _friendly, chirpy_, voice.

"Good morning sunshine!"

She noted she was in the hospital wing, lying under thick, warm sheets and her throat stung with the familiar taste of medicine. And in the bed opposite her, sat up and chewing on a chocolate frog, Charlie Weasley lounged, grinning with delight.

"Weasley." She replied. "The hell are you doing here?"

"Broken rib," he shrugged, and a chocolate frog landed on her lap. "Should be fixed in no time, but the bruising you gave me means it's hard for me to walk around too much."

She sat up and threw the frog back at him. She didn't need his peace offerings. Everything hurt, and her whole arm was throbbing. Her wrist was wrapped in a bandage.

"You broke my wand arm." She observed steadily.

"Just your wrist, actually." The frog landed on her knees. "Would you just bloody eat that? Bill brought them for us."

"I don't eat chocolate." She scowled.

Charlie rolled his eyes and more frogs landed at the foot of her bed. "Don't be ridiculous, what woman doesn't eat chocolate? You're just being awkward."

"Yes." She looked around, at anything but him. Her wand was on the nightstand next to her, as was a package with her father's handwriting. She assumed she would receive a scolding inside, but thought no more of it. Next to it was a get-well card from Bill and his friends.

"That Jack bloke came up to see if you were okay," Charlie was still talking at her, though she tried not to notice. "He dropped off the Bertie Bott's. And your mum sent a howler, but madam Pomfry disposed of it. I don't think she wanted you under any more stress whilst you're healing, or something."

She wanted to ask him a few questions, but didn't want to make contact with him that might make him assume she was actually talking with him, or else he might never shut up.

So she settled for staring out the window until Madam Pomfry glided over to her to make a fuss. Her dressing was changed, she was forced to drink some foul medicine and she was left alone with Charlie again until dinner arrived. With it, came a few books from the library to keep her occupied.

At about nine o'clock that night, an obviously bored Charlie asked, "wizard chess?"

She loved wizard chess. "No thanks." She replied, turning the page of her book.

"You've done nothing but read, aren't you bored?"

"Nope."

He gave up and sat silent for a little while longer. They were the only occupants to the ward, allowing Charlie to be as annoying as he liked. Sometime around half past the hour he started tapping and humming along to a Quidditch chant, over and over, just the first few lines. He was unbearable, and about twenty minutes of listening to him, she gave up in a rage and threw her book at him.

"Will you please shut up? I'm trying to concentrate!" she snapped.

"I knew I could get you talking!" he grinned. "So who's your favourite Quidditch player?"

With a withering growl, she started on another book. Charlie, however, was just as encouraged. "Tonksie!" he moaned, "I bored! Would you just talk to me?"

She couldn't stop herself. "Tonksie? Where'd that come from?"

"Seemed cute. Look we're gonna be in here for a while," he shrugged again. "We might as well entertain each other."

"I am entertained, I'm reading," she replied.

"Watcha reading?"

When she opened her mouth to reply, she stopped herself short and shook her head. She was falling into an old trap.

"I apologised to you," he said offhandedly. "I admitted I was wrong and I tried to make peace. I've been trying to talk to you. I even invited you to Hogsmeade. You could at least talk to me now, you talked to me then"

She glared, and the silence stretched out uncomfortably. But this was what she wanted from him, she needed for her own sanity for him to feel as uncomfortable as she had been for the last four years.

"You didn't have to the guts to ask me out yourself." She said coolly. If her mother had taught her anything, it was to keep her head when being confronted. "You got the _gigglers_ to do it for you."

"I'm not a bad person." Charlie stated, not even trying to gain eyesight. "I'm sorry for everything my friends and I put you through, it was never intentional." He chewed his lip thoughtfully. "But I've tried to be friends with you. I can't stop the girls irritating you, it's what girls do."

She turned to look at him sourly, but did not speak. He shifted under her gaze. "You do so well in your studies, and you're so intelligent" – she knew enough about people to know he was trying to suck up to her, and wow, it wasn't working, but it sure was entertaining to watch him squirm – "plus I hate it when girls are mad at me. It never really works out."

"One less potential girlfriend for you to flash around?" she suggested dryly.

He knew it was going badly, he could tell that much. "What I'm trying to say is that…I don't think it's fair, for you I mean…"

"The point, Weasley."

"I want to protect you."

That stopped her short. She blinked. "Protect me?" she asked dully. "Protect me." Then she laughed shortly. "I'm top of my class in defence, charms and transfiguration. And you want to protect me? I think I can do that by myself, ta."

"Socially." He added. "I can stop people annoying you. I'll stop all the jokes and the remarks."

She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? For what price? You're still a git."

He grinned and laughed. "Yes! I am a git! But I'm a _sorry_ git!"

"No, just a git."

Madam Pomfry bustled out of her office and stood at the foot of Charlie's bed. "You're free to go, Mr. Weasley."

He smiled at Nymphadora in a fashion that was she supposed meant he was sorry to be leaving her to her boredom, but she couldn't quite believe it. However, just as he had pulled back the curtain and emerged in his normal jeans and t-shirt, Professor McGonagall stormed into the hospital wing.

"Not so fast, Mr. Weasley." She snapped. "Good evening Miss Tonks."

"Professor." She nodded.

"You two will report to me on Monday evening for a punishment." She said, her hands clasped in front of her. "And you will think about how dangerous it is to play Quidditch alone without adult supervision."

"Yes professor," Nymphadora agreed, not even considering answering back. Charlie, however, was curious.

"What punishment?" he asked.

She stared down at him thoughtfully. "Cleaning the Quidditch shields."

"But Tonks can't polish, she's hurt her wrist!" he said. The fact he was looking out for her didn't bypass her, but she didn't give him the satisfaction of an acknowledgement.

"Your other wrist is unharmed, isn't it Miss Tonks?"

She nodded.

"Then I shall see you Monday evening." McGonagall nodded to them both. "Have a good weekend."

She left, and Charlie sunk onto the foot of her bed with a sigh. "Was worth a try," he said.

She remained tight lipped and silent. He rose from the mattress, gave a hearty wave, and left the hospital wing.

She couldn't help but feel slightly dejected as he left.

**Haha ok, so it's been a while, and wow was this chapter hard to get out. I rewrote most of it, and it just never seemed to work. Ah well. Tell me what you think when you review! (PLEASE)**


	6. Pink

The weekend was quick to end. She left the hospital wing on Sunday night and as her homework was all completed, she had nothing to else to do. She hesitated as she stood in the centre of the great hall, at a loss for things to do when Bill caught her eye and waved. Timidly, she waved back, and when he beckoned her to join him she took a few cautioning steps.

She let out a breath, and sat on the bench to his right. His friends smiled and nodded to her, and she felt herself smile back.

"Uhm, thanks for the frogs." She said quietly.

Bill waved her off. "It was nothing. They're bad for my figure anyway." He stared intently at the chessboard in front of him and moved a tiny protesting figure. "_Check_. How are you feeling now?"

The miniature knight was quickly slaughtered. "I'm ok. My wrist aches a little, but it's working."

"I can't wait to tell my brothers how Charlie was beaten up by a girl." Bill smiled. "Got a vicious streak in you, haven't you?"

She felt herself blush, but she wasn't ashamed of what she had done. She was just lucky that the teachers hadn't caught her aggressively attacking Charlie in a way that wasn't sporting.

"With an arm like that, you should play on the team."

"I wouldn't like all the attention," she found herself admitting. He hair was falling in her eyes, and just wished she could change it to a short, more comfortable length without facing the consequences.

He grunted, and for her sake he seemed to return to his chess game. "You like wizard chess?" he asked.

"Love it," she replied, and watched with interest as he played. It was that or maintain eye contact with the students around her, something she had neither the confidence nor the desire to do.

Charlie came bouncing into the hall and joined his brother without noticing her. "Adrien has a girl in the common room, I couldn't stand the snogging noises," he announced, and flung himself onto Bill's other side. He yawned, and she kept her head low, ruefully wishing he would not see her. "Got too uncomfortable, so I thought I'd join you. Are you playing chess?"

"Just finished," Bill replied, "unless you want a match now, Tonks?"

Charlie gaped at her, and she felt the strong desire to hit both Weasley's over the head with a heavy book. "I thought you didn't like chess!" Charlie exclaimed.

She was torn between ignoring him and giving a witty remark, only she couldn't think of one and thought it rude in front of Bill. "I never said I didn't like it, I said I didn't want to play."

He rolled his eyes with the air of someone defeated, and stretched out across the chair. "I wish I'd done that potions essay," he yawned, "Snape is gonna give me a right go at tomorrow."

"Can't you do it now?" Bill asked, as he set up the chessboard and settled it between himself and Nymphadora.

"Lost the title." He said simply.

Without thinking, she said, "I have it here if you'd like it."

Startled, he watched her pull out her potions essay from her bag and place it on his knees. "Take what you need but don't copy it. Snape hates me enough."

Bill was beaming at his brother, "see? Isn't she just lovely! Good on you Tonks!"

She didn't respond, and hunched over her knees as she drew herself deeper into the seat. She was feeling unsure of the added attention, and shocked herself that she had done something nice for Charlie when all she had ever had was grief.

That was to say, not lately, she hadn't. Charlie had been bearable, friendly, and above anything else she was left confused and sailing in uncharted waters. She realised this was the closest she'd ever had to real friends before, which scared her, and that no one other than the teachers, in all her life at Hogwarts, had been as nice to her this week as Bill. Perhaps that was why she had leant Charlie the essay, she concluded, to secure Bill's friendship. Or whatever it was.

Charlie was muttering to himself, hastily scribbling down his answer to the question. Then he looked at Bill expectantly, "what goes in that potion to make you talk backwards?"

His brother's eyes grew wide. "I know this," he said meagrely, "uh…hold on one second…"

"The ink from a cracken, the bile from a parrot, thinly shredded dictionary pages and hellebore leaves." Tonks piped up.

Charlie frowned, "does it have to be a dictionary?"

"Yes. A book of every known word has the greatest magic." She said, quite seriously.

They sat silent whilst the great hall bustled around them. She felt stirred and almost panicked as the world moved, and to be so close to a crowd, surrounded in the midst of them, was overwhelming. It was like drowning, and she felt the sudden need to swim.

"I'm gonna go, uh," she pointed towards the large wooden doors. "Walk or something. I don't know."

Bill's smiled slipped and his eyes betrayed his concern. "At night? Alone? Tonks, what if Filch catches you?"

"I'm a quick runner_," and stupidly clumsy_, she added silently.

"I'll come with you," Charlie said, standing up, and before she could complain he, ever so gentlemanly that she wondered where it had come from, picked up her coat and draped it across her shoulders. Then he pulled on a big fluffy jumper with a large yellow C on it and nudged her from the crowd.

He wouldn't take no for an answer it seemed, and she found herself reluctant to deny him the chance to prove himself.

He played the perfect gentleman as they wandered down the halls. If it were an act or not, she liked this new, quiet, considerate Charlie, who was happy to accompany her through the dark, secluded halls. They walked in silence and reached the great hall before either of them spoke.

They stopped. Neither moved. Neither spoke. The just looked at each other in wonder.

Finally, "you wanna go outside?" he asked.

"It's cold out."

"Not that cold."

She shrugged, and followed him as he pushed open the door. She shivered beneath her coat, but refused to let it show.

"Tell me something I don't know about you." Charlie said suddenly.

She blinked and shoved her hands deep in her pockets. "Like what?"

"Like anything. What's your full name?"

"Nymphadora Lyra Tonks." She said in one breath. "Yours?"

"Charles Septimus Weasley." He replied grudgingly. "Middle name from my grandfather. Good bloke."

"Ah." They kept walking. She stared at the floor noiselessly.

"Do you…uh…have any brothers or sisters?" he ventured.

She shook her head, but didn't look at him. "No. Just me."

The idea of a single child seemed to throw him off course for a second, but she jumped in quickly and returned the question. He laughed, and took a deep breath. "Well, there's me, Bill, obviously, and Percy. And then I have two twin brothers coming up next year, Fred and George and my youngest brother Ron and my baby sister Ginny."

She blinked. "Wow. Your parents must've been at it like-"

"I'm begging you not to finish that sentence!"

They laughed together freely, but soon only the silence was left and the awkwardness returned. He seemed to be watched her constantly, but she would not return his gaze. Acquaintances were one thing, but being on the verge of friendship was completely new and terrifying.

Charlie seemed to have that boyish, cheeky look in his eye again that she recognised from the hospital wing. "So do you like me yet?"

She blushed at the connotations that implied. "You're not half bad, Weasley." He grinned, but she held up a hand to stop him. "But that doesn't mean I forgive you, for anything you or your friends did. You can't just take back four years of isolation and torment. It isn't that easy."

He shuffled his feet and stared up at the castle. A few windows were lit up, but most of the curtains were drawn against a small slit of yellow light. "I said I was sorry."

"Yeah, well." She shrugged and started to walk, talking over her shoulder. "You still owe me that drink at the three broomsticks, you know."

She continued to walk, and Charlie was left to stare at her retreating back with his mouth wide open. "But _you_ stormed off on _me_!"

He caught up to her within a few strides. His chin reached the tops of her ears and her hair was pulled back tightly in a band. He stopped, and squinted for a second.

"Hang on a second," he said, grabbing her shoulder, and pulling her towards him. He placed his fingers in her hair, and pulled at a long, thin strand of pink. He noted that it was not a clip, like he'd seen his sister wear. It was most certainly attached to her head, and the roots of the strand were attached firmly to her scalp. "How did you do this?"

"Do what?" she asked breathlessly.

"Turn your hair pink. Who did that for you?"

She gasped, and her hands covered her mouth, and instinctively, before she had even processed the idea, her eyes had screwed up and the strand was a mousy brown.

"What the-?" he yelled, jumping back a meter and letting go of her hair. "_Did you do that?_"

"No. Do what? You're seeing things." She said in one breath.

"You definitely did that!" he was pointing at her, his mouth was open again and he'd taken a further step back. "That's impossible. I've seen sixth years screw that sort of spell up, and you didn't even use your wand. That's impossible."

"I didn't think the bludger hit your head," she said simply. "You're insane Weasley."

"No I'm not, you changed your hair" his clicked his fingers, "_just like that!". _

"I didn't do anything!" she was panicking now, thinking of the attention the other students would give, how she would be labelled as a freak and ignored even more. How Charlie and Bill might never speak to her again, and the little taste of friendship she had had would force her to be even more lonely than she had ever been before.

"You're one of them – them – changeling people, metamorgi-"

"Metamorphmagi."

"Yes!"

"No!" she snapped. "I'm not. You're insane. You're seeing things."

A look of realization slipped over his features. "Bill called you 'the girl who is always painting her nails.' You don't paint them, you change them!"

"Stop it!" Nymphadora stamped her foot, and folded her arms. "Just stop it. You saw a strand of hair reflected in the moonlight, that's all. You're presuming. The metamorphmagi aren't real, they don't exist."

He raised an eyebrow. "I know what I saw."

"You saw wrong!" she stormed away from him, turning her back, and marching back up to the castle. He kept pace with her all the way, his stride longer than hers but all the way, she wouldn't talk to him. She was mumbling and cursing to herself, but she wouldn't respond to him, not even when he tried to gain ground and stand in front of her.

As they reached the passed the great hall, she turned right towards the basement and before he could look for her in the crowd, her feet had already reached the first steps to the girls staircase. He let out a breath, and watched her go.

Someone's hand collided with the back of his skull, and his brother's face appeared before him. "Ok, what did you do _now_?" he demanded.

**I love this chapter, it was so much fun to write! I hope you all loved it as much as I did. FYI I chose Tonks's middle name as Lyra because it is the name of a constellation, just fitting in with the theme. **


	7. Enigma

**I've been in Spain. So I'm tanned and relaxed, and that's why I haven't updated.**

**URGGGHHHHH. This chapter didn't go so well, but I had to have them make up sometime, and this is it. Kinda. It's slow, but it's moving.**

Monday came grudgingly, just as it always did, and Nymphadora awoke with the grim realization that something terrible had happened the night before, and the blissful ignorance of not quite knowing what.

She was disappointed to find that, upon arriving to breakfast, Charlie and Bill were both sat with their friends, and neither looked up to greet her. Not feeling confident enough to simply slip across the vast expanse of students and bid good morning, she placed herself at an empty spot, and ate breakfast alone.

Even after they had finished their meal, they didn't stop to chat. She wondered if perhaps this time she had pushed them too far, that they'd taken the hint and actually decided that leaving her to her solitude was the best idea. Perhaps they'd got bored of her, and didn't find her amusing enough, that she was just too much hard work to be around, and wasn't really worth the effort. Or perhaps, she concluded, they thought her a freak, and didn't want much more to do with her.

She settled on this, and whole-heartedly believed it. This betrayal only reinforced her belief's she should be alone, that the other students were better than her.

Worst of all, however, she missed them. Their regular chats; playful banter and encouragement somehow had given her the confidence to sit among the crowd without keeping her head down.

The bell rang, and she forced herself to her first lesson. Charms. For the first time in four years she didn't feel enthusiastic about learning. She wanted the weekend to be back so she could sit and think about what had happened and contemplate how she was going to retrieve their friendship, if that was at all possible.

She went through the motions of the day in a low mood. Without even realising it, she felt as though something had been ripped from her grasp, when she wasn't even sure she had wanted it in the first place.

Charlie was laughing with his friends as they practised banishing charms on a long, white feather. She didn't have the heart for it, so in one quick motion, she sent her feather through the air like a dart and out the window with her wand, irretrievable. She sat instead with her arms folded beneath her chin, as she lounged across her desk, sulkily watching the group in front of her.

Charlie slipped a glance at her once or twice through the laughter, and he stopped, just for a second to watch her. But he always turned away again, and the hard, tight knot in the pit of her stomach formed again when he sniggered, like she'd eaten one of Hagrid's rock cakes.

She resented him more than ever. He was acting like he had never taken the time to talk with her, to learn about her family and her his, like he had never apologised for all the horrible things he had done.

The day flew by in a daze, and she avoided him, not that he had made it difficult for her. By the last lesson of the day, potions, she was in a dark mood. She felt that even if Snape were to make the lesson difficult for her, she would have no issue with arguing back. She would relish in the inevitable detention as a way of escaping her peers and having quiet time to think.

She took a table in the corner, where no one ever sat, and even if they had, wouldn't for the matter of her being there. She followed the lesson plan accordingly, brewed her potion to perfection and bottled it. Once placed on Snape's desk, she sat back to watch for the last twenty minutes as the rest of the class failed to meet the deadline. She noticed with bitter satisfaction that Charlie had failed, once more, to succeed in making his potion, and it had turned a thick, gluttonous yellow.

She did not, however, get the same satisfaction as Snape drew up beside him, and sneered. "Mr Weasley, you have, once again, proven your abysmal talent for potions. I would suggest you took more time concentrating on your potion than ogling Miss Tonks." His lip curled, as Charlie's cheeks matched his hair, and she sat back in quiet, empty disbelief.

She would not meet his eye for the final minutes of the lesson, and instead kept her eyes on the desk, flicking occasionally through her textbook in an air of having something to do.

As the bell rang, she was already out of her seat and rushed up the steps towards the corridors. She didn't wait to see if he was following her – she doubted he would – and flew up the stairs to the girl's dormitory, where she knew Charlie could not reach her.

Hours passed. No one had wondered where she was. No one had been sent to check on her, or questioned her lack of presence at dinner. The girls had bustled in and out, and not said a word. No owls had tapped her window.

She fell asleep, and tried not to think of how everything had changed when her situation had stayed the same.

When she awoke, she was disappointed to find the day was still the same, and she had only slept for a few hours. Rejuvenated and restless, Nymphadora rose from her bed and slipped downstairs to the great hall. Sometimes she wondered if she could turn invisible, or maybe it was the just the nature of a metamorphmagus. That, after all, if you could change so dynamically in your looks, maybe you were destined to a life of seclusion.

Bill too seemed to ignore her, chatting animatedly with his friends as he ate. Her eyes skimmed the words of her book, but she didn't absorb any of it. She could only sit and think, and try to comprehend how she could not function without the Weasley's in her life, but they seemed quite fine without her. It didn't seem right, and it most certainly wasn't fair.

She had never, ever before had a friend, and to be teased in such a way, and to be so stupid to push them so far, she knew was all a product of her own fear of failure. She had never before believed she had needed a friend, nor never wished for one, until she had tested the waters with her toe and given the choice to make a splash or retreat.

A golden figure loomed above her. It was Bill, taller than she remembered, wearing a frown. She stared blankly, unsure of what to say; if there was anything she _could_ say that might change things.

She waited for him to say something, to sit, or smile. But he did none of these, and merely stared, waiting for her. He should have known better, she thought, than to believe she could.

She watched him, as her fingers itched to return to her book. He was making her uncomfortable, and still he didn't seem to make any effort at rectifying the situation. He appeared to be waiting, and she wondered just how long he would.

Then, finally: "yes?" she snapped.

He folded his arms in a very adult and disapproving way, and raised an eyebrow. "You want to tell me what's going on?" he said.

She would have loved to know the answer to that herself. "Really, really, don't." she replied, and stared at the words of her book. They may have well have been Greek, for all she could focus on them, and the thumping in her chest was making her nauseous.

He sat opposite her, and leant heavily on his knees towards her. Bill sighed, and scanned the room. "Charlie wouldn't want me to say this, but he's really worried about you." He leant that little bit closer, so that she could barely hear him at all. "He thinks you're pissed off with him."

It hadn't really occurred to her to be as angry as she was hurt, and what he said made no sense to her. How could Charlie, - confident, brave, admired Charlie, - even spare the time to be worried about her when she had convinced even herself that she was for the most part fine? When, just a few weeks ago, she could bet he didn't even know her name?

"Well. I'm not." She mumbled.

"Would you talk to him?" Bill's voice was pleading, "he's rubbish, he really is, won't do anything without a good kick up the-"

But suddenly Charlie was there, looking over Bill's shoulder anxiously with a look on his face that closely resembled a frightened house elf. He grinned stupidly, so forced she noted.

"Hiya, Tonks." He said, and Bill got up and left. Charlie took his seat, but his shoulders took up only half the space and where Bills feet had been folded towards him, Charlie stretched out so his feet were inches from hers.

"Heya. Charlie." She added, and dropped her book to her feet.

"Watcha reading?"

One look silenced him, and they waited awkwardly. Neither was sure what to apologise for, and neither could look the other in the eye.

"Did you see me in potions today?" he asked, and when she cautioned a look at him he had a smile on his face. "I made a whole new brand of troll degreaser. Took a whole chunk out of Snape's desk when I handed the bottle over."

She laughed shortly, and let herself enjoy the sensation just for a second before it faded.

"Please talk to me." He begged, "I really don't like it when you're mad at me. Mostly because I know you could curse my ass into the next millennium." He tentatively picked the book up from the floor beside her feet and opened it to the centre page, but made no effort to read it.

Nymphadora remained silent whilst Charlie struggled for something to say. She watched him with pursed lips, all previous confidence lost in the face of him. Her eyes followed his fingers on the pages.

"I mean it's silly really, isn't it?" he continued, flicking through the novel. "I know we don't have much in common, but we both like Quidditch and I know for a fact you can knock me off my broom."

Nymphadora uncurled her arms and took the book out of his hands. He was breaking the spine by bending it, and it made her want to cringe openly. "I like music." She said softly.

His eyebrows rose in surprise at her random comment but he shrugged and said, "I don't really listen to much."

Her fingers ran alone the broken spine and her nails folded between the pages as she hugged the book to her chest. She wasn't a shy girl, she never had been, but something about Charlie made her nervous and her voice go weak.

"You should." She said simply. "It's almost better than Quidditch."

Charlie looked scandalized, but he laughed all the same and looked over his shoulder to where his brother was watching them silently a few feet away. When he'd turned back, she had stood and smiled down at him. "It's late, and I'm tired. Can we talk about Quidditch at breakfast?"

He nodded, a ridiculous grin spread across his freckled face, and he watched her ascend the stairs, a mystery he couldn't quite get his head around, but one he couldn't quite wait to unravel.


	8. Potions

**I want to get this chapter out before Deathly Hallows is released and JK turns Tonks evil or something and screws it all up for me. **

Lips pursed with excitement, she waited at the Gryffindor table with her hands wringed in her lap. Nymphadora kept her head down, but no longer from fear of catching a passing students eye. She was trying to keep her inescapable grin under control, and let her hair hang over her face in an effort to hide it.

She was giddy, So much so that the very tips of her hair turned pink and her smile broadened. A freckled blur threw himself down on the bench next to him, and she risked peering out from beneath her hair.

"Are you under there?" he asked, and a finger curled round her locks and pushed them behind her ear. The tips turned purple, but his eyes only flickered and he was smiling again. "Good morning." He said, piling bacon and eggs onto his plate.

"Wotcher," she replied, following his lead.

"Potions first," he said conversationally, whilst shovelling food into his mouth in a way she had come to recognise as being a Weasley male trait. "I suck at potions." He stopped eating for a second to ask, "Can you help me?"

At her agreement, she waited for him to finish breakfast and she was escorted down to the dungeons. Charlie's friends, she noticed, watched her with malice and she met their gaze with defiance; she was not going to let them take Charlie away like they had taken the last four years.

Charlie leafed through the textbook as she took a look around. The boys were all avoiding her gaze, sniggering, and the girls seemed to be sending her death glares. Nymphadora held her head high and let out a smile to the students on the table around her.

Charlie, of course, was completely oblivious to all of this, and muttering potions ingredients under his breath.

When he reached to put the wrong ingredients into his cauldron, she stopped him, and made sure he stirred the potion in the right direction. But when his potion still turned a sickly yellow and let out gluttonous pops Nymphadora was at a loss as to where he had gone wrong. She checked through the instructions, compared it to her own, perfect, potion and ran everything by him again. They had no time to repeat the potion.

"I can't understand where you went wrong!" she whispered as Snape made his rounds around the classroom. He thankfully ignored them completely, and moved onto the Hufflepuff's on the next table.

"I followed all your instructions," he said miserably, looking across the class. Everyone else's attempts had seemed to have worked or come very close. His wasn't smooth and runny like everyone else's.

He closed his textbook with a snap and pushed it into his shoulder bag. "It's not like I wanted to get a good mark in potions, and I won't be taking it for NEWT level, but I really did want to pass the class." He let out a sigh, hunched over his desk, and watched his potion bubble sadly.

They bottled their potions and name tagged them.

"What've you got next, Charlie?" one of the blond girls asked. She leant across the desk and blocked Nymphadora from view.

"History of Magic," He replied, and leant behind her to look at Nymphadora, "what've you got, Tonks?" he asked.

She smiled, and the girl in front of her huffed. "History of Ancient Runes. But I'll see you in Defence after break, right?"

He grinned, and _winked_ in such an un-Charlie-ish way. "I'll see you there then."

The bell rang, and when he stood up to wait for her, she waved him off. "I just need to ask Professor Snape a few questions, I'll catch up with you later."

He left, as well as the rest of the class and Snape retreated into his office, in the obvious hope she might leave and not attempt to speak to him. When the classroom was completely deserted, Nymphadora took a breath, and emptied the vial with Charlie's name on it.

The rumour progressed around the school quickly, and Charlie Weasley, the popular, earth shatteringly fabulous Quidditch player, and Nymphadora Tonks, the intelligent nobody, were dating.

The rumour caught up with the couple fourth period when a Hufflepuff boy started making over exaggerated kissing noises during charms. They ignored it, until one of the Gryffindor girls turned round in her seat and asked excitedly, "Is it true?"

Charlie blinked, and looked at Nymphadora hastily scribbling down notes from the board. She didn't look back, the board apparently more interesting and demanding. "Is what true?"

"You two! You're dating, aren't you?" she said, and Charlie noticed not a single note had been made on her parchment, whereas Tonks had covered almost three sides with her tiny scrawl.

Nymphadora's quill stopped for just a second, and her eyes peered through her curtain of hair. But she continued to write, slower, with one ear slightly cocked.

"Uhm, no we're not." He said, with a nervous laugh. Tonks, he noticed, had gone very red, and he felt his ears do the same.

"Oh." The girl brightened, and turned back to her desk. "Well that's good then!"

Nymphadora scribbled harder and faster than ever, and refused to look past the board.

The fifth, and final lesson of the day, was Transfiguration, in which they had been asked to turn lizards into shoelaces. The biggest problem was, the lizards wouldn't stop moving long enough to hit them with a spell.

After a fourth stunning spell, Charlie managed to stick the poor thing down to the desk. For the third lesson that day, Nymphadora found herself sat next to Charlie. His friends ignored her, pushed passed her and spoke above her, but she didn't mind. Charlie spoke to her like an equal, like they had known each other for years not days.

After transfiguring the lizard into a long shoelace and back again, and through all the colours, and even once with little spots on them, they sat back to watch the rest of the classes' attempts.

Whilst watching one of the girls turn her lizard into a slightly more stretched version, Charlie leaned into her ear and whispered, "You really are a metamorphmagus, aren't you?" It wasn't a threat, nor no tone of dislike entered his voice.

She took a chance, and blinked. Her eyes turned a vivid turquoise, and her mouth twitched. "Really Charlie. Whatever made you think that?"

He laughed, and stared, and stared a little more. Every time she blinked, her eyes shifted a tone.

"That's just so-" Charlie shook his head, a manner of disbelief. "How do you do that?"

She shrugged, and unstuck her lizard. It crawled onto the underside of the desk, probably never to be seen again. "I just…can."

"How long have you-?"

"All my life." She twirled her wand between her fingers, a nervous habit. "But I only really found out two summers ago."

Charlie let out an "ah" and they waited quietly until the bell rang. Nymphadora turned to reach for her bag, and found Charlie already holding it out for her, a grin plastered over his face and his ears slightly pink.

However, as they reached the door to the classroom, professor McGonagall stopped them with a gesture. Her lips were pursed, her eyes hard and she said, "Mr Weasley, might I see you for a second?"

He grimaced, and said "I'll see you in the common room then," and turned heel back into the classroom.

She waited outside, sitting on the floor with her knees up to her chin. All she could think of was how she had replaced Charlie's potion with some of hers and now, after she had had time to think, how that might look to a teacher. Charlie, who had never before shown interest in her, suddenly became adept in a subject he had otherwise been abysmal in.

A stab of panic, and she found herself pressing her ear to the door. McGonagall was yelling, and she most defiantly heard the words "potion" and "fraudulent."

Charlie was in there for a further fifteen minutes, before he emerged looking downcast and red in the face. He looked shocked to see her still standing there, waiting for him.

"What happened?" she asked, taking a step towards him.

"Someone switched my potion," he mumbled. "But they think I did it." He shouldered his bag, and scratched his forehead. "They've written home and everything."

"But-" she opened her mouth to admit everything, to spill before him how she had tried to help, how she innocently thought it could work.

"McGonagall said that I might even be given an instant fail in potions, and I have a month of detentions." He scuffed his foot across the flagstones and raised his eyes to look at her, "but I didn't do anything, I swear. They think I stole your potion, but I didn't, I really didn't."

She watched him, silent, and without a seconds thought, she pushed her way into the classroom. "Professor!" she called, and McGonagall emerged from her office and approached her silently.

"Professor, Charlie didn't do it," she said breathlessly.

The professor looked over her glasses at her, one eyebrow slightly raised. "Miss Tonks?"

"Charlie didn't take my potion," she said quickly. "I switched them."


	9. Fingers

**First of all, dear readers, Tonks IS NO LONGER IN GRYFFINDOR. JKR wrote it herself on her website, Tonks is in HUFFLEPUFF. My annoying perfectionist habit has caused me to rewrite a few things, nothing major, just a few setting places (e.g. Gryffindor common room is the great hall, etc) and I would like it to be noted that from now on, in this story, Charlie and Nymphadora are **_**no longer**_** in the same house. So please, don't get too confused. **

**I always forget how much I love writing this story. **

**Oh? And JK?…mrrrr.**

"Charlie didn't take my potion," she said quickly. "I switched them."

McGonagall stared, and Charlie gaped from the doorway. There was silence, as McGonagall seemed at a loss of things to do – not once, in four years of teaching Nymphadora, had she once had to punish her for anything other than forgetting homework once in second year.

"Miss Tonks?" McGonagall forced out. "Are you saying you intentionally put Mr. Weasley into this situation in order to sabotage his grade?"

"No professor." She took a brave, shaky step forward, and held her hands in front of her. "I was trying to help him. He followed all the instructions carefully, and the potion still came out wrong, I'm not sure he's had a pass grade all year, and I didn't want him to fail, just this once."

The professor was silent once more, and when she finally spoke it was not the words Nymphadora had expected. "You mean to say, miss Tonks, that you did this out of friendship?"

Nymphadora glanced back at Charlie, who was an odd shade of red. "Yes professor," she replied.

"Mr. Weasley?"

Charlie jumped back in shock as she addressed him. He had assumed his punishment was over. "Professor?" he asked weakly.

"Would it be right to assume Miss Tonks performed this act out of kindness?" she said sharply, although there was a distinct, soft tone beneath her words.

"I guess, I guess so Professor." He was watching Nymphadora closely, as though not quite sure how to make up his mind. Surely she must have noticed how he had sat with her in class and spoken with her?

"You can both go."

She was sat back at her desk, shuffling papers, and the students gaped at her. "Aren't I going to be punished?" Tonks asked, her bag slipping from her shoulder, though she made no move to hitch it back up again.

McGonagall smiled, a rare, tight smile. "No Miss Tonks. I think you understand what you have done wrong." She held up her hand when they made to move, "although, this will be reported to your head of house, and I don't want to see it happening again."

Nymphadora smiled at her and turned to follow Charlie, who was holding back a grin. As they made it to the door, Charlie holding it out for her like a gentleman, professor McGonagall spoke again.

"Oh and Nymphadora?"

The girl winced. "Professor?"

"I must say how nice it is to see you making friends."

She nodded, a grin plastered across her face, and the students let the door shut behind them. Charlie let out a long, built up sigh and glanced at her equally as relieved. "Close one that."

She laughed, and stopped for a second to tie a shoelace. Her shoulder bag slipped to the floor with a clunk as the many books inside came into contact with the stone floor. A bottle of ink burst in the side pocket and spread across the material like a tide.

Charlie swooped down to collect it, and heaved it onto his own shoulder next to his own bag. "Merlin, Tonks, what have you got in here?"

She blushed, and straightened up again, but when she went to retrieve her bag he shook his head and began to walk.

"So you switched my potion, eh?" he asked lightly. "That's dangerous business, that is."

"You seemed worth the cause," she replied, and looked straight ahead. Her stomach was rumbling, and she felt it time for dinner, so she led the way into the great hall.

Bill, nor any of his friends were to be seen anywhere, although Charlie's friends tried to wave him over. He simply waved back, and joined her at the Hufflepuff table, slipping their bags underneath the bench.

Students stared at the odd pairing, so strange as it was to see another student seated openly at another house table. The girls from Nymphadora's house sat only a little way up the table, and had stopped eating to watch.

Tonks smirked, and helped herself to potatoes.

"I wonder," Charlie, said aloud, despite his mouth being half full with food, "what would happen if a student from another house tried getting into a common room?"

She shrugged, and poured them each a glass of pumpkin juice. "I suppose it would be the same as when the boys try to enter the girls dormitory."

"What happens then?"

"They get thrown a few feet," she said offhandedly. "But I suppose that's a charm to detect gender. It's not like we're not all the same, so I don't see how they could stop us getting into other houses common rooms."

"It's a shame," Charlie said thoughtfully, "that there isn't somewhere for everyone to meet. They hark on so much about inter house unity and all, but they never try to get us to interact socially, other than classes and Quidditch matches, which," he let out a snort, "hardly encourage us to be friendly."

"I guess," Nymphadora looked around at the great expanse of students. "Then this is it. If we want to meet with another student, we have to meet here, or in the grounds."

"But it's winter." Charlie speared his fork into a slice of beef with a slither of anger. "We can't go outside, and it's not like we can talk in the library."

She felt like she knew where this was going. Was Charlie suggesting that they begin to meet, outside classes and chance meetings in the great hall, and actually become friends? Not just acquaintances, but friends, who sought out each others company on the basis of want, even need, and not just because his big brother had told him to? The prospect, though consider many times before, still brought heat to her cheeks.

"Just think it's silly really." He concluded darkly.

The girls from her dormitory had picked up their plates and bags and shifted closer. They placed themselves down in front of the couple, and waited for either of them to say something.

Charlie merely looked between them, neither as annoyed by their presence as Tonks was but shocked when they said nothing as a greeting, or an apology.

"Yes?" Tonks asked acidly, all utensils abandoned, her hands curled on the table in fists.

"Charlie," one of the girls asked sweetly, leaning forward and Tonks noticed angrily that she had undone the top few buttons of her shirt and loosened her tie. She felt her own shirt, completely buttoned and the tightness of her tie against her throat and hoped that she would never reduce herself to attempting to gain _that_ sort of attention _that_ way.

"Uhm." Charlie was still glancing between them, to Tonks with her back straight and this girl, Laura, leaning towards him. "Yeah?" he asked slowly.

"You don't have to sit with her you know," she said in a loud sort of fake whisper. Tonks eyed the finger pointed towards her, as if the dislike in her voice wasn't enough for Charlie to know who '_her'_ was.

"I'm good, ta." He replied, and shifted on the bench to face Nymphadora. The girls watched in despair, mouths open.

They did not, however, leave, and Charlie began to find them increasingly annoying. It was only when Bill entered with the girl who had been giggling over him for months – Charlie had never picked up her name – and waved at them, that the girls seemed to really stop and stare.

"Good evening," bill said, a hand the girls lower back as he guided her to the bench. He glanced at the forth year girls and said, "ladies, I see you've finished eating, I don't suppose you would mind vacating your seats so we could sit down?"

The girls, quite rudely, huffed, and left.

Charlie let out a long, low whistle and Nymphadora shook the hair from her eyes. "You share a room with them?" Charlie asked, seemingly unaware that his brother had sat opposite him. "They must be like torture."

"They are," she replied, and thought bitterly that Charlie didn't know the half of it. Just a few nights ago she had woken up to the freezing cold of the night to realise the girls had stolen her duvet. Her homework, if kept not kept in her magically sealed trunk, would go missing if left around, and simple, necessary items like her bookmarks and toothbrush or hairbrush went missing on a regular basis.

"Well if they, y'know, give you any, any trouble," Charlie slammed a fist down on the table, "I'll-"

"You'll do what, Charlie?" said Bill amusedly, "I think if you did anything to them they'd only react harsher back. Boys get back at each other with fists, girls," he glanced at the pretty one sat next to him and squeezed her hand, "well they can just be _vicious_."

The girl nodded, and stuck out her hand at Nymphadora. "I'm Miranda," she said kindly.

"Tonks," she mumbled, touched her hand, giving it a little shake and letting go. Physical contact was to her what spiders were to the girls in her dormitory.

"How long have you and Charlie been dating?" Miranda asked, and Bill laughed quietly.

"They're not," he laughed again and gestured between the two stunned students. "They're not quite at that stage yet."

Nymphadora did not fail to hear the end of his sentence and wondered, just for a second, if that was where everyone anticipated their relationship to go?

Charlie, as usual, seemed quite unshocked by his brother's statement and shrugged, helping himself to more roast beef. How he managed to stay so trim was completely beyond her, and it seemed to be the same with all the Weasley brothers.

The third, and as of yet, final Weasley brother appeared at Bill's shoulder. Percy asked, "why are you eating at the Hufflepuff table tonight?"

Charlie, with his mouth full, pointed at Tonks with his fork and mumbled something through his food. Bill rolled his eyes and explained, "We're eating with Tonks tonight, because she's eaten with us at the Gryffindor table so much in the past week."

Percy seemed to find the answer satisfactory, and let out an "oh, ok then" before sitting down on Charlie's other side. "Letter from mum," he said offhandedly.

"Twins been causing more trouble?" Bill asked.

"Something like that." Percy began to help himself to pudding, ignoring his main course entirely. He looked up at his grinning brother and said, "You laugh now, Charlie, but just wait, they'll be up year after next."

"And I won't have to deal with them, I'll be long gone." Bill added, " It's up to you guys. Seriously, Good luck with that."

Tonks watched with fascination as the boys interacted with one another, and she and Miranda exchanged tired, hopeless looks as the conversation escalated onto Quidditch, as it always did.

"Out of interest," Charlie asked Bill, "what would happen if you smuggled another student into our common room?"

"Are you implying," Bill said slowly, waggling his fork towards his brother, "that you might smuggle dear Tonks here in tonight?"

The boy went red, and faltered, "I wouldn't put it quite like that but," with a glance at Tonks he said pleadingly, "c'mon Bill, the girls in her dormitory torture her. We can't sit in here all night and where else is there to go?"

Bill chewed his food thoughtfully. "I hope you're not implying she sleep in your dormitory?"

The students blanched, and Nymphadora's eyes grew wide. Charlie was slowly shaking his head. "No, you moron, of course not."

Bill was still watching them closely, and continued to do so when Charlie helped her up and shouldered both the bags before placing the very tips of his fingers on the base of her spine gently, as Bill himself had done earlier. Even from his position watching them leave; he could see Charlie's ears were red.

"Your little brother is a quick learner," Miranda muttered, taking his hand.

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed my latest story, Elm Cottage. If you've read Deathly Hallows, you were probably as intrigued as I was as to where this certain characters life would lead them, and this is an attempt on my part to find out.**

**You can find a link on my profile if you're interested.**

_It's rude not to review, you know._


	10. Witch

**I repeat: Tonks is now in Hufflepuff because I'm a perfectionist and JK said so. Deal with it. **

The curtains of her bed were tied shut, and her eyes were scrunched together in a desperate bid to get some sleep, but the girls in her dormitory seemed to be hissing at each other. In her dopey state, she neither heard nor cared what they were talking about and placed her head back onto the pillow.

"_You_ do it."

"I don't want to do it, _you_ _do_ _it_!"

"_I_ can't, what if she's contagious or something?"

She sighed, and rolled over. She expected to be interrupted very shortly, whether it was because they were desperate to hex her or steal her duvet again, she felt her hand reach for her wand next to her pillow

"I think she's awake."

The girls became silent, their breathing excited and one seemed to be giggling lightly.

The curtains of her four-poster bed were ripped apart in a stream of candlelight, and five heavy lumps jumped onto her mattress. Tonks sat up, her wand pointed at the closest girl, sleep clouding her mind, and she looked between them.

Five wands were equally pointed towards her, and the girls wore smug, satisfied grins.

"We want to _know_," one said slowly, as if Nymphadora was stupid – as if _she_ was the one who had failed her defence against the dark arts essay because she "_couldn't give a toss who attacks me, as long as he's fit_!" - "how did you do it?" the girl finished, leaning closer, so her nose was mere inches away from Nymphadora's. She was kneeling quite heavily on her legs, and she felt her dig her knees into her calves, but Nymphadora did not grimace. Satisfaction was not something they would receive that night.

"Do what?" she said quietly.

Her wand was plucked from between her fingers and Tonks might as well have been naked. The girl who had sneered at her just a few days before at the dinner table fingered it, and examined it like she could tell Nymphadora's inner thoughts from merely looking at it.

"Enchant Charlie Weasley," Laura said acidly, and her knees dug deeper. She held Nymphadora's wand excitedly, and lifted it.

Suddenly, red sparks shot from the tip and Nymphadora threw her head back to dodge them, her skull colliding with the solid oak headboard behind her. Her head span, her eyes watered and her blood seemed to throb with the very pain of it.

The girls cackled at the seemingly harmless spell that had been cast. Nymphadora blinked back tears, not only from the pain but the very humiliation of it – where was Charlie, when she so desperately needed him?

"You didn't sleep in here last night," one of the girls said greasily. "You spent the night with Charlie, _Jack_ told me."

Jack. Nymphadora had forgotten about Jack, the mousy haired sixth year friend of Charlie's who had taken so much interest in her as they walked to the Quidditch pitch, and had sent her the Bertie Botts while she recovered from her fall. That seemed almost months ago, when in fact, it had been barely weeks. Days even.

"What did you do to Charlie to make him like you?" her own wand was brandished in her face again, but Nymphadora did not move this time. No curse could be that bad to make her tell them.

"A love potion." A girl said eagerly.

"Some weird spell."

Laura snorted. "Well it can't be her stunningly good looks or winning personality," her lip curled, and for a moment she looked amazingly like Snape. "Tell us, or I'll use the cruciatus curse."

This time, Nymphadora snorted. Certain that none of the girls would have the guts to do anything other than mildly burn her flesh; she leant forward so the tip of her nose brushed the Laura's.

"I hate to tell you," she said lowly, "but Charlie genuinely likes me. We're friends, which appears to be a foreign concept for you when it comes to boys." She let out a lingering breath, and stared directly into her eyes. "And if I were you, I would get the _hell_ off my wand."

She snatched her wand from the startled girls fist, and pushed past them. Like she thought, they had neither the guts nor the intelligence to really hurt her, but as she exited the dormitory her ankles singed.

Laying down on one of the sofas by the fire, she curled up in a ball and tried to sleep, but it would not come and she was cold. She had no doubt the girls had searched her trunk by now, looking for love potions, letters, or anything they could humiliate her with the following day.

The fire cracked and burnt in the heath, but Nymphadora did not raise her head to watch it. She shivered under the cold night, not even the fire could warm her now, and she refused to be found in the morning sleeping by the fire like a dog – she would be ridiculed enough as it was when found like this in her pyjamas.

"Is mistress alright?"

She squinted, and lifted her eyes beyond the arm of the chair. "Who's there?"

A tiny, wrinkled house elf appeared from behind a chair tentatively. "Is mistress cold?"

She gaped. Her family had never owned a house elf because of her mother's bid for independence after she escaped her family. She had instead decided to do all the housework, all the cleaning and cooking on her own. Unfortunately, Nymphadora had not inherited the talent.

"Uhm, a little," she replied, and the house elf disappeared with a pop. Moments later he appeared with a large woollen blanket and stretched out his hand shakily.

She leant forward and took the blanket, wrapping it around herself.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, sitting up straight and rubbing her eyes. She feared she would never sleep this night.

"We are cleaning the common room, mistress." Another pair of bright eyes peered from behind the cushions but on seeing her hid quite quickly again. "We do it every night."

"Oh I'm sorry," she made to stand up, and the elf looked mortified. "I'll get out your way."

"No, no, mistress," the house elf looked pleadingly up at her. "Ordry will bring you some tea!"

Before she could protest, the elf had disappeared again, and she swung herself back onto the sofa uncertainly. Ordry appeared a few minutes later with a tray with a teapot, a large mug, sugar cubes, milk and some cookies balanced upon it hazardously. She accepted them gracefully, smiled at the elf and thanked him.

The elf, eyes swimming with tears, bowed low and scuttled across the common room behind the chairs silently.

She drank the tea merely out of fear of offending the creatures and ate the biscuits. She left the tray and cup under the couch so she could return it in the morning, and wrapped the blanket around herself tightly.

In the morning, the tray was gone and her robes were folded neatly where the tray had been, pressed, cleaned, and smelling of lavender, despite laundry day not being for another few days. The blanket had been replaced with her own duvet, which she dragged upstairs with her and changed.

The contents of her trunk, she noticed bitterly, were scattered across the floor, many items broken or dented. Her clothes had been ripped, and, although repairable, it was the principle of the matter that set her blood boiling.

She loomed over her sleeping roommates, and pulled out her wand.

* * *

She stretched with a great yawn, and Charlie followed her movements with his eyes. She had told him all about the house elves, and the tea and blanket, and, how when she had emerged upstairs, her trunk had been ruined.

She did not, however, tell him where her roommates were and why they were not in class.

"They really think something is going on between us?" Charlie asked with a laugh that was far too fake, far too forced and she did not miss his fallen features, but there was nothing she could do; why would she risk her only friend for a relationship they were both too young to enter and too young to understand the complications?

"And then they hit your head against the headboard?" he asked unbelievably.

She shook her head, and fingered the lump on the back of her head. She had awoken this morning with an overpowering headache and a lump an inch deep. "No, me and my clumsiness did that."

He huffed, apparently preferring his version in which Tonks had been the unlikely victim. No doubt, she reflected bitterly, he would want to ride to her rescue.

History of magic droned around them and for the first time in four years Tonks took no notes, only changed her fingernails at random as each new subject was approached.

"What do they think we got up to?" Charlie asked slightly breathlessly. He seemed to be fidgeting more than usual, and the boys around him had suddenly perked up to listen. "Do they think we-?"

"Probably." She replied gloomily. "They kept asking how I 'got you'. I hate sharing a dormitory with them, Charlie, I really do." She put her head on the desk and closed her eyes for a second, her head spinning. The headache seemed to be splitting her brain in two and her eyesight had become fuzzy.

"We can sit in the library tonight, if you like," Charlie offered, and Nymphadora knew how much he disliked the library, and therefore how much he must genuinely _give a damn_ if he was willing to give up a night of chess and play fighting with his brother and friends for her, sitting quietly, most likely studying, just to stop the girls getting to her.

She smiled kindly and knew how much he cared. If only she had had the strength to return the favour.

It was second period, and her stomach was rumbling. She had had nothing to eat or drink since the tea and cookies last night having woken up later than usual and still needing to pack her bag for the school day.

The door flew open, and five girls stomped inside the classroom, escorted by Professor Flitwick. Professor Binns seemingly didn't notice them, and continued to drone on about dragon blood.

The girls, hair hiding their faces, slipped into the only seats left in the room, right in the middle of everyone. One of the girl's hair flew away from her face and Charlie let out a loud snort of laughter.

The girls scowled and Laura turned around, sweeping her hair instinctively from her eyes as she did so. "Tonks," she snarled, "make it go away."

And there, on her forehead, read the word WITCH and her skin had become a sickly green colour, clashing fabulously with her yellow and black tie. The other girls had peeked around to watch.

The whole class was laughing, and Tonks felt a rush of warmth that these girls, these horrible lying, betraying girls had tasted their own medicine. That was to say, she knew they had no chance of changing, but she loved it all the same.

Charlie was laughing so hard he had gone scarlet in the face. He kept lifting his hand, as if to point, before collapsing in a fit of snorts and giggles once more.

"Change us back!" Laura hissed, but Nymphadora shook her head and stood her ground.

"No. You're a _bitch_, you have no respect for me and you don't give a damn who gets hurt." She leant forward and smiled, "it doesn't feel good, does it?"

The girl lashed out, but Tonks was too quick for her and Charlie stared open mouthed as she hexed her, in one quick slight of the hand, and the girl now had one yellow pustule on the end of her nose.

Nymphadora smiled and, just as the bell rang, shouldered her bag and walked from the classroom with her head held high, knowing, for the first time that she had really stepped up in the world.


	11. OWLs

**Seamless time jump to Nymphadora's year 5 whoosh…**

Tonks knew that it would not all magically change, that Charlie being a positive thing in her world would not make such a dramatic effect as to change her life in one fell swoop. She was not surprised when Charlie chose Quidditch over her, or when the girls in her dormitory sought their revenge again and again and again. She knew the situation could change, but people never really could.

She did, however, unleash her darker side. When it came to defending herself, or indeed protecting the dignity of others, she did not hold back. Nymphadora felt that years of constant torment were a price worth paying for how she responded – knowing that if everything went wrong, she would still have friends to fall back on.

And it wasn't just Charlie who took an interest in her, but other people too, from all years. Boys and girls seemed to brave talking to her now that she herself had developed the ease of conversation.

It was, however, a shock when she received the results of her fourth year exams and sat before her head of house, Professor Sprout, staring numbly at the piece of parchment in front of her.

The Professor sat on a greenhouse stool in front of her, absent-mindedly repotting a green and rather violent plant. She looked up at her between slashes of thorns and watched her with concern.

"I'm not saying that your grades have to be perfect, Nymphadora," she stuffed the trailing roots back beneath the soil, "but compared to your previous records, these have been somewhat-" she pulled the plant out and chose a bigger, turquoise, pot, and Nymphadora felt her hair instinctively match the colour, "disappointing."

She felt herself blinking back tears. Never once, in all her years at Hogwarts, had she received anything less than the highest grades. And here she was, staring at the evidence in her hands, proving that friendship really could cost the world.

"Nymphadora," Professor Sprout said, abandoning the plant just for a few seconds. "I know you're disappointed with yourself, and I'm not saying that you have to neglect your friendships all together, but perhaps a little more studying and less seeing your friends and you will be back to your old self. OWLs are this year, you know, and they're almost more important than NEWTs. Without your OWLs you won't be able to take the classes you want."

Nymphadora nodded numbly, and just to add salt to her wound, professor Sprout added, "I'm afraid that's why I couldn't allow you to be a prefect this year, what with your behaviour this year."

She left quietly, not despising Professor Sprout, but herself. How could she have let this happen, when her education had been so important to her? How could she have forgotten what she herself wanted when she had tried so hard to please the ones she loved?

She did not go to meet Charlie, but slipped up to her dormitory, locked the damn door and pushed her trunk in front of it and cried.

Charlie sported a brand new, shiny, prefects badge, and Nymphadora hated how it looked on his chest. She couldn't hide her scowl, and fixed herself gloomily on the cutlery in front of her, examining her reflection in the back of her spoon. Same old Nymphadora. Same old boring hair. Same old eyes.

She had been forced to admit to herself she was too afraid to return to Hogwarts looking different, and so had opted for her natural look once more. She hated it, and longed for the colours she felt fit her so naturally.

She was not hungry at all, and stared at the food around her. The mere thought made her feel nauseous, and so she abandoned her dinner for a glass of pumpkin juice.

Charlie looked at her through a mouth of food. "You not hungry?" he asked thickly.

She winced, and turned away. She couldn't even look at him. "Not really."

"You ill?"

She shook her head.

"Then what's wrong?" he set down his fork for just a second and watched her carefully, "Dora, what's up?"

But she didn't answer, and stood from the bench and gathered her bag from her feet. Still shaking her head, her eyes full of tears, she retired to her favourite place in the world.

The library was empty. No students had been assigned enough homework that they could spend the evening in here, but she could. She set her textbooks on the desks and reviewed the lessons to come, a familiar, warm feeling in her stomach as she relearnt the texts she had read over the summer.

It was hours later that Bill approached her silently. He didn't try to talk, but remained quiet as he pulled his own books out and began to study. His hair was long now, past his shoulders and pulled back in a cord at the base of his neck. He was gorgeous, and she knew she should have been blushing and giggling around him, but she felt only mild annoyance that he could take up her table space without asking.

"Charlie's been looking for you." He said in that matter of fact way. He didn't look at her, and his fingers traced the text on an age-old volume.

"Charlie is probably playing exploding snap with his friends," she said bitterly, though she wasn't quite sure where the bitterness had come from or why.

"Did he not write to you over the summer or something?" he asked curiously, "because I remember him talking about you non-stop."

A stab of guilt. Charlie had written to her at least twice a week, long, drawn out descriptive letters of his summer, how Ron had been bugging him about Hogwarts and Ginny had lost two teeth in one month. Fred and George had melted the paint off their walls when they got hold of their father's wand, and Charlie had watched the chicks hatch in the chicken coop.

"No, he wrote," she replied.

"Then what's he done?"

"He hasn't done anything."

"Then why is my brother moping around the common room checking the window every ten minutes for an owl." Bill leant over his book, and she pulled her own towards her.

"Shouldn't he be doing his prefect duties?" she snapped.

And Bill knew. He let out a soft "ahh" and returned to his book.

Tonks couldn't stand him not talking after he had given such a grasp of insight, yet couldn't quite make the step to ask him to elaborate.

He did, but a lot later in the evening. They had been studying without interaction for over an hour, and neither had spoken. Bill slammed his quill down on the table, and closed his book with a bang. Madam Pince glared at him.

"You shouldn't be jealous," he said, pointing a finger towards him. "Charlie worked hard this year, and he deserved to be a prefect."

"I don't care about him being a prefect," she snapped, "do you honestly think people would listen to me if I told them what to do?"

"Then what the _hell_ is your problem?"

She scowled. "My grades have gone down." It sounded stupid as she said it, and she looked down at her notes so she wouldn't have to meet his eye.

He was watching her, but he said nothing, his mouth moving in silent protest. Finally, he said "and how is that Charlie's fault?"

"I had perfect grades until I met him," she hissed. "It was only when I met him that I started neglecting my studies, and if I don't work now I won't get the grades I need for a decent future!"

He chewed his lip and scratched behind his ear. Leaning back, he folded his arms and met her eye. "OWLs are this year," he observed.

"Yes."

"You'll do fine," he said confidently, but she cut in.

"I don't want to do fine, I want to do brilliantly! If I don't – if I don't – I mean, without good grades, how am I meant to do something worthwhile?"

Bill looked at her as if he hadn't expected her to be thinking about the future, as if she had a _plan_ for her life. "What do you want to do?" he asked softly.

"I want to be a healer," she said confidently.

"You need good grades for that?"

"Only the best." She fingered her quill, spinning it round between her thumb and index finger. "You know that there's usually about fifty people who apply, but there are only five spaces every year. If I have average grades, what chance do I have?"

He was nodding. "I can see where you're coming from. But don't ignore Charlie all together, he has dreams too, he'll understand."

She snorted. "Charlie will get a place on a Quidditch team even if he fails every class and drops out after OWLs. The only question they'll ask is 'when can you join?'"

He laughed, deep rumbling laughs, however inappropriate it might have been. "You can have both, you know, Charlie and the grades."

Nymphadora wasn't convinced, but the thought of losing Charlie was terrible.

"Infact," he said conversationally, "why not get him to buck up his ideas a bit? I don't think he's ever been to the library in his life, it'd be good for him to know the value of studying."

She sniggered, and as it was growing late and the librarian was glaring at them, she gathered her bag over her shoulder and left the library with Bill at her tail.

They stopped at the fourth floor, and Bill went to turn right into the Gryffindor common room. They said good night, and Tonks, now satisfyingly hungry, slipped downstairs to the great hall.

It was almost empty, except for the final few stragglers, but there was plenty of food left on the plates. Only moments after she had begun to eat, she felt a tap on her shoulder.

Expecting Charlie, she did not at first recognise the mousy haired seventh year that smiled at her. Then, in a rush of blushes, she smiled, "hello Jack."

Jack. The boy, who had so graciously escorted her to the last Quidditch match of the year, had always been so polite and quick to say hello. He had, she noticed, grown a few more inches over the summer.

"Hiya Dora," he said, swinging his bag from one hand. "No one I know is sat at the Gryffindor table, do you think I could sit with you?"

He was lying. There were plenty of his friends gathered in one big group, and plenty of other students in his year on the other house table. He flung himself next to her, and served himself a meal.

"How come you're so late to dinner?" he asked, scooping mash potato onto his plate.

"I was reviewing my lessons tomorrow," she said lamely.

He laughed, but it wasn't mocking. "You sure are eager."

"Where were you?"

He pointed towards the ceiling vaguely, "my cousin joined Gryffindor this morning, and she was really homesick. So I stayed with her until she went to bed, it was really upsetting, she didn't know anybody."

She smiled sympathetically, not quite sure what she could say to contribute to that. "I'm sure she'll make friends."

"Oh, I know she will."

For the second time that night, Nymphadora sat in silence, although Jack wasn't Bill, and the silence was awkward not companionable.

He seemed to be unnerved by something, and his right hand was twitching. "I was, uhm" he squeezed it into his lap. She noticed he was shaking. "There's a Hogsmeade weekend coming up, as you probably know," he gave up on his fork all together, and looked her in the eye. "So please don't feel pressured or anything, but do you think you would like to go with me? We could get a drink or something, I don't know, I mean if you don't want to that's ok, but if you did…"

He trailed off, and she couldn't help but merely blink at him, and Tonks could almost see the hope slipping from his face. Never once, in all her life, had she been asked out on a date before.

"That could be fun," she said shakily, a blush rising to her cheeks and she suddenly felt as uncomfortable as he looked.

"ace," he said nodding, as if congratulating himself on a job well done. Then he grinned, and looking as though he had completed his work for the night, stood up, winked at her and shouldered his bag. "Night Dora!" he said, and called over his shoulder "I'll see you tomorrow" and he bounced from the room.

She continued to stare at the doorway, not entirely sure what she had just agreed to, but happy about it all the same.

Settling on the idea that Bill was probably right, that she was worrying about nothing and that she could have a social life as well as a decent future – after all, Bill managed, and he was one of the top students at Hogwarts – and besides, what could be wrong with her dabbling in dating when all the other girls had a first boyfriend years ago?

**Reviews are right up there with oxygen. There's an invisible gorgeous, longhaired Bill doll for everyone who reviews…**


	12. Hogsmeade

**Urgh, another chapter I dislike, but you just pop em out all shiny all the time. Hope you guys enjoy this…**

**Oh yes, and mild what-some-might-call-swearing in this chapter. Nothing hardcore.**

She saw Jack briefly over the next few weeks, walking with Bill towards lessons or at dinner time, but he did nothing more than say hello and grin at her, and he seemed to be unable to do anything more – not that she felt she would have been able to strike up a conversation with him anyway.

Nymphadora almost feared he had forgotten what he had promised, but her fears where squashed the evening before they were due to walk into Hogsmeade as she was sat with Charlie at the Gryffindor table, when he sat lightly beside her. She could feel the heat rising to her cheeks before she had even realised he was there, and as he swung his legs over the bench his knee grazed hers and her heart gave a little leap.

"Evening, Dora." He said brightly, and she let out something akin to a contented sigh in response. "You still up for tomorrow?" he asked hopefully – apparently he had been thinking along the same lines as she had.

"Oh, yes, of course," she giggled - actually _giggled_ – and couldn't wipe the beaming smile from her face as she stared down at her lap, feeling like an idiot.

Charlie, mouth full, looked up curiously, "What's tomorrow?" he asked thickly.

She hadn't told him. "Dora and I are going for a few drinks together," Jack said strongly.

Charlie shrugged, "cool, I'm up for that."

She could have hit him and Jack laughed shortly, "No, Charlie, I mean that _Dora_" he pointed to her, "and _I_" he pointed out himself, "are going to Hogsmeade" he indicated wildly between them, his fingers flapping, "_alone_."

Charlie sounded repulsed as he blurted out, "what? Like a _date_?"

She couldn't look him in the eye as he glanced between the two of them, mouth wide open, apparently lost for words. Eventually, he struggled out, "a date with _Dora_?"

"Yes." Jack seemed to be growing impatient as his stupidity grew, and as much as she appreciated it, Nymphadora didn't need him defending her when she herself was still learning how to calm Charlie down.

"Why? Can't you get a girl your own bloody age?"

She was torn between the stab of hurt she felt and the mild pride he was trying to protect her. But he was glaring at her, pain evident on his face as confusion clouded his features.

"So we're not going into Hogsmeade then," Charlie said lowly, "I thought that was the plan."

"Well you didn't ask…" she started, but he jumped in.

"I didn't think I'd bloody need to, Dora! That's the plan, it's always been the plan, and now who the _hell_ am I going in with?"

Jack was leaning on his elbow, watching the couple with despair, "Dora, if this is going to cause problems, maybe we shouldn't…"

"No!" she turned on Charlie, breathing heavily, and in the back of her mind she felt something change. "You have plenty of other friends, Charlie, and I always get left out whenever I go in with you, so why shouldn't I go in with Jack?"

The whole table had grown silent, and she suddenly felt on display. Then she felt it, the absence of heat on the back of her neck, and lifted her hand to touch her hair. It was shorter, only a few inches, and blue…

Bill was watching her with interest; his fork halfway to his mouth and Jack gaped at her. Charlie was still sulking, and had folded his arms. The twist of a smile haunted his mouth, and she couldn't help but think he was enjoying the humiliation she was enduring.

Jack raised his fingers to touch the turquoise locks on her head, and a shiver flowed down her spine. He was grinning, bemusedly, and said softly, "You didn't use your wand."

She shook her head, and covered her hair with her hands. More people had turned to watch, and her blush crept further up her cheeks.

Nymphadora was waiting for the outcry, the taunting and even for Jack to leave and never speak to her, but he continued to finger the strand of hair, turning it round in his fingers, oblivious to her discomfort. He let it drop, and ever so causally returned to his dinner. "It suits you," he said conversationally, as though she had just shown him a new hat, "I think bright colours suit your personality better than brown."

Dinner continued, and she scrunched up her face to turn her hair natural again, but people never really stopped staring at her. She explained to the table how she had been born with her gift, but only harnessed it a year or so ago, and it was likely to change instinctively in situations. The seventh years, apparently more educated about metamorphmagi than Charlie had been, asked her intricate questions – she was not a freak, just a talented, mysterious young woman.

The evening grew late, and it was with a subtle touch of her hand that Jack said goodnight and promised to meet her the next morning. Bill nodded to her, but Charlie stalked out of the hall without so much of a good night, his nose high in the air, and his eyes fixed pointedly ahead.

She could barely contain her excitement that night as she crawled into bed and yanked the hangings shut. The girls were talking excitably about the following day, what they would wear and where they would go, and Nymphadora listened lightly before falling into a sporadic sleep.

Saturday morning was crisp, cool, and the weather for gloves and scarves. Winter was coming, but Nymphadora had no time to feel down about it – she dressed quickly, looked at herself in the mirror and changed again, and considered the makeup on the shelf beneath the mirror before abandoning the idea before it could take hold. The time for attempting makeup was not a first date.

She was twenty minutes early for breakfast and it seemed the castle was just waking up. It was at five to ten that the Gryffindor's seemed to emerge in a great lump, squeezing through the door, Charlie amongst them. For the first time in six months, however, he did not sit next to her, and moved down the table to sit with the boys from his year.

The lingering betrayal was quickly masked when Jack sat next to her and poured her a glass of pumpkin juice. "Hi," he said, and she grinned back, unable to speak.

"No blue hair today?" he asked lightly, and she scrunched her face up instinctively. "Ah." He said happily, "Pink it is then."

They ate, and dispersed into the grounds. Charlie walked several meters away, but Nymphadora found herself quite happy to leave him to his sulking – after all, what had she done wrong? She walked so close to Jack that she could feel the heat from his wool overcoat, and felt more secure than she had in a long time.

They must have looked a pair: Jack, at least six foot and wearing colours of red and gold, and Nymphadora, barely five foot and in yellow and black. Students stopped and stared, but as she passed professor McGonagall she was offered a small, tight smile.

The walk to Hogsmeade was long, but an enjoyable one once they discovered they had something to talk about. Jack's family was extensive, he described how his family were muggles, and he had to dress and act muggle at all family events. They spoke about her father, a muggle born, and his muggle family, and how very strange it was to turn on light switches with your fingers.

Quidditch, a common ground to walk on, allowed her to speak passionately and strongly about her views – how there were not enough women in sport, how the men dominated the field and how the Holyhead Harpies were revolutionalizing the Quidditch scene. He listened politely, contributed with a nod, and listened again.

Jack was a gentleman in every way. As they reached the three broomsticks he held open the door for her, he pulled out her chair and when she went to grab her purse to pay for her share of the drinks he batted her off. "I'll pay," he insisted, "I really can't let you do that."

She felt secure enough that Her hair remained pink throughout the day, and that was what she loved most about Jack. He was not extraordinary, he was just a lovely young man who appreciated how Nymphadora was different, and he seemed eager to extract those differences.

"Some of the girls I've dated," he said casually, "cared so much about their makeup and their looks that they had no time for school. I think that's what I like about you," he lifted his butterbeer to his lips with a gloved hand, "you've got your priorities right, and from what I hear you've got raw ambition too."

She smiled easily, and took a sip from her own drink. "What are you going to do next year?" she asked, and the age gap between them suddenly seemed immense – he was about to start a career and leap into the wide world, she was barely considering her options.

"I'm not sure," he said with a shrug, "I thought about travelling the world for a bit, but I've applied for a job in muggle relations. I should be hearing from them pretty soon actually."

The best thing about Jack, she observed, was they he did not take his education lightly – unlike Charlie, who breezed through subjects and counted down the days until the weekend, Jack knew the value of hard work and wasn't afraid to show his intelligence.

"I took muggle studies as a dare," he laughed, "Bill told me to do it, because I couldn't pick my last class, I took it at OWL level, loved it, and continued it on 'till NEWT. I never dreamt in a million years I'd be going into it for an occupation, but I love muggles, they can be so sweet and simple."

His voice had a slight twist to it, an accent she couldn't place. Her mother, who had always valued the use of proper speech, had taught her from the moment she began to talk. She would have cringed to hear Jack talking in such a way as he was now.

They travelled the shops, gazing through the windows and slipping inside. She used the money her mother had sent a week ago to buy herself chocolate and a new quill. Jack bought them each a pumpkin pasty and she sat on a bench outside zonko's watching the students pass.

"Michelle," he told her through laughter and pointing towards a blond girl wandering up the path towards them, "got chased out of Hogsmeade in our third year by a goat. She's had an irrational fear ever since. And Jonathon over there" – he pointed and waved to the boy – "managed to get his teeth glued together last year, somehow, no one's really sure how he did it, and, oh look! There's Bill!"

He was indeed walking towards them, and stood before them wrapped in fluffy jumper with a large W on it (for William, she presumed) and Miranda hung from his arm.

"We've just been to Madam Puddifoot's," she said lightly, "horrible place, wasn't it Bill?" she swept some confetti from her hair and stared at it, "could barely breath in there, never mind have a decent conversation."

"Would have matched your hair though, Dora," Bill said, tilting his head slightly to the side, "that really suits you."

"Thanks," she mumbled.

The couple joined them on the bench, and she was pushed up against Jack as they all squeezed on. They seemed to be oblivious to her awkwardness, and Bill leant around his girlfriend to talk to her. "You two having a good time?"

She grinned and nodded and felt Jack do the same beside her.

"I saw Charlie moping around earlier," Bill said, rolling his eyes, "don't know what's got into him, I would have thought he'd loved to come into Hogsmeade, he usually does. Ah well," he stretched, and lifted himself from the bench, "we're going to head back to the castle soon," he tucked his arm around Miranda's waist, "it's getting dark and cold. See you two at dinner?"

They agreed, and the couple retreated. Jack watched her carefully, and before she knew what had happened he had planted a kiss on her lips. She was too shocked, however, to really enjoy the experience, and just…._ blinked_…at him in surprise.

He shuffled and said, "sorry."

"Don't be sorry," she said shakily, "you just kind of…. caught me off guard a bit…."

She trailed off and this time she was expecting it.

----

When they made their way back to the castle the sun had set and they were using their wands to guide them. They collapsed, laughing and red cheeked at the Gryffindor table in front of Bill, who raised an amused eyebrow.

"What time do you call this? Dirty stop outs, where you been?"

Nymphadora was laughing too much to answer, so Jack cut in, "We've been hanging around."

"Mm, really."

"Have you seen Charlie anywhere?" she asked breathlessly, helping herself to a meal. "I didn't see him at all today, I think he's avoiding me."

The oldest Weasley shrugged. "He's in his dormitory I think."

But when she made Bill go and check, he wasn't there. There was no Quidditch practice on, and he wasn't in the great hall. When her and Jack finally retired to the library (he had promised to help her in her charms essay) they were shocked to find him hunched over a table, books spread out and working hastily on a long roll of parchment.

"I'll find us a table," Jack said, and left her alone to deal with her best friend.

She should have known that a boy and a girl could never have simply been friends. There was always a romantic undertone, and in her haste to get to know him she had neglected the fact he might have seen her as something more – Charlie already had friends, why on earth would he seek out another just to be mates?

She approached him, and pulled out a chair next to him. "Wotcher, Charlie."

He grunted in reply, and his quill continued to scratch at the parchment. "Did you have a nice day?" she ventured.

Another grunt, and she was beginning to become angry, so in one swoop she had ripped the parchment from under him, closed all the books with her wand and forced him to look at her.

"I have done nothing wrong," she hissed, "we made no plans for today," he opened his mouth to protest, but she wasn't done and she wanted to make damn well sure he knew it. "There is nothing wrong with me going on a date. It's not like you asked me first!"

Charlie stood up, his chair scraping back loudly on the flagstone floor. "I did ask you first!" he scowled, "ages ago, so why is he better than me?"

She couldn't answer that question, because she didn't know herself. What made Jack better suited for her than Charlie? He wasn't, of course, he was only different.

He said nothing, only collected his books and stormed from the library. She noticed sadly there seemed to be a lot of it going around these days.

**Oh Charlie, you're so thick…now we know where Ron gets it from…**


	13. Yellow

**Teensy, Weensy little bit of swearing in this chapter. I bet you won't even notice it.**

October came, and went, quickly. Nymphadora continued to date _that Jack_, that perfect, pompous Jack, and Charlie hated it.

Charlie hated _him_. What right had he had, after all, to take Nymphadora away? When it had been Charlie to bring her out of her shell, encourage her to talk to him when she had avoided social situations for so long.

He watched them, walking hand in hand from their cosy little sessions in the library to eat dinner. They looked so terribly happy, and Nymphadora had opened up so much that he felt he had only grazed the surface by talking with her.

She was laughing freely and loudly – how often did she do that with him? – And touching his arm as she walked. Charlie remembered once when she had done that, he had make a joke – he couldn't remember what – at Bill's expense, and she had doubled over in laughter, almost knocking over her entire meal and clutching his arm.

And now. Well, now she wouldn't even speak with him.

Charlie knew he had to make the first move – why shouldn't he, when it had been him to become upset without reason. All Tonks had done was chose another guy, and how wrong was that in the grand scheme of things?

The Hufflepuff, Gryffindor game was fast approaching and tension between the houses had reached a high. The other three houses had assumed places as supporting Gryffindor, meaning that in just being a Hufflepuff it became almost dangerous to be in the halls alone.

He worried for her, but Jack seemed to look after her, accompanying her to lessons when he could and collecting her from her common room to take her to the library at night.

The morning of the match, Charlie stood nervously in the changing room, acquitted in his Quidditch robes, broom in hand, shaking.

The captain was giving a lecture of some sort; he wasn't sure what, and his mind drifted to the Quidditch stands, where he could hear the chanting and the screaming, and where Tonks was watching.

Would she be wearing red or yellow?

They marched out into the stands, broom over his shoulder and his head high. He couldn't hide his grin as the stands cheered, and a rhythmic chant of "Weasley! Weasley!" erupted over the crowds.

The next twenty minutes was a blur, and the Hufflepuff team were nothing to match the Gryffindor's. But they played well, and Charlie made sure to shake the seeker's hand at the end of the game, still holding onto the struggling snitch in his left.

He could not see her as he was whisked up through the crowd towards the changing room. Not ready for the awaiting party, he took longer on his shower, scrubbing through his hair and changing into his robes slowly until he was sure the rest of the team had left.

Sitting down on the benches, he ran a hand through his wet hair and sighed.

Charlie didn't feel as though he had won anything, the heavy ball that had settled in his stomach still there, despite the victory. She had been on his mind for weeks, and yet his pride wouldn't allow him to approach her, not least because whenever he had the chance Jack was always nearby.

There was a knock on the door, and he looked up hopefully, wishing to see her figure stood in the doorway, but it was only Bill. He sank down into his seat, elbows on his knees and looked at the flagstones.

Maybe he would go by Hagrid's and enjoy a rock cake or two, take his mind off things.

"You won!" Bill said brightly, and Charlie almost wished he had come and gone again in the time it took for Charlie to look down.

"Yeah, I guess so," he mumbled.

The bench dropped slightly as Bill sat down. As usual, Bill never said a word, waiting for Charlie to voice his thoughts, or tell him to piss off; whatever was suitable for the time. Bill shifted closer, and wrapped his arm around his younger brother. It was such a display of brotherly affected, Charlie almost drew away, but it was Bill, and Bill wouldn't take the mick.

When he couldn't wait any longer, Charlie asked, "Did Tonks come to the game?"

"Yeah, she did."

Several moments, then, "what colour was she wearing?"

"Yellow, mate, but what were you expecting?" Bill shook his head and rolled his eyes at his brother, and Charlie knew a brotherly piece of wisdom was about to burst from his lips. "Did you think she'd stand out in the crowd wearing Gryffindor colours in a sea of yellow? That you'd fly down after catching the snitch and sweep her off into the sunset on your broomstick? I mean, really, she's got to be loyal to her house, hasn't she? She gets enough bullying without wearing the other teams colours to her own house Quidditch game!"

Charlie opened his mouth to protest but Bill wouldn't hear it. "I know what you're going to say. But you can't protect her all of the time. Besides," he glanced at his younger brother. "From what I hear, you haven't been doing an awful lot of protecting lately."

Charlie shrugged. "I'm pissed off with her."

It sounded stupid even as he said it.

Bill, annoyingly, laughed. "For what? For meeting a guy, who likes her, and liking him back? For being a teenage girl? Merlin, Charlie, let the girl have some consistency in her life."

Charlie blinked several times before answering, kicking at his broomstick moodily with his foot. "What do you mean?"

"I mean…" Bill sighed, "I mean that Dora hasn't had that many friends. She hasn't had a boyfriend before, and Jack is good for her," he gave him a look, "yes, they _are_ good together Charlie, like it or not."

He huffed, and ran a hand through his dripping hair. "I'm rubbish with girls. I wish I was more like you."

"What?" Bill laughed again. "You think I could always talk to girls? Hell, at your age I was worse than you!"

"Really?" Charlie asked hopefully.

He looked thoughtful for a second. "Well, maybe not quite as bad as you, but I wasn't what I am now!"

"Ta. That's real encouraging."

Bill sighed, and shifted towards him, the look of tired over-told lessons on his face. "Why don't you find another girl? Dora's great and all-"

"It's _got_ to be Dora," Charlie insisted.

Bill nodded, and said no more on the matter. Bur he stood up, and offered his brother a hand. "C'mon," he said, "the show's started, and you're the star. The whole common room will miss you."

Charlie grudgingly stood up, and shouldered his broomstick and backpack.

----

Dora had not been there, from fear of being mauled by the over exuberant Gryffindor's, and Charlie found himself excusing himself and wandering up to bed early.

The next morning, determined to straighten things out in and in high spirits because of it, Charlie arrived early to potions class so he could see her first thing.

He watched her round the corner with Jack, who glanced at his watch, kissed her swiftly and sprinted back up the corridor. She waved after him, before turning to face the awaiting class with a dopey smile on her face.

He caught her eye. He wanted so badly to look away for the hurt in her eyes, but he held on, and slipped between the small crowd to stand before her.

He smiled, and nothing needed to be said. She lunged at him, her arms around his neck and he heard her whisper, "oh Charlie!" as she clung on to him.

Not caring that every student in both their houses was watching them, he buried his face in her hair. It was shorter, spikier, and she looked dazzling.

Dora drew away, her eyes green in the dimly lit dungeon, a blush rising on her cheeks. "I've missed you," she stated, and Charlie felt a rush of happiness. Tonks had always been so honest, so very blunt with her ideas, and feelings and thoughts.

"Me too," he hooked an arm around her shoulder, and pushed her inside the classroom gently. "And I'm happy for you and Jack, I am. Really." He added, as she looked up astonished. "And my potions grades have really dropped in the last few months, Snape is loving it."

He wasn't happy, but he had her, and surely, that was all that mattered, wasn't it? If Tonks were talking with him, wouldn't that be enough for him? Could their friendship alone be enough for him?

She smiled at him through the golden steam of her potion, and he knew that it wasn't.


	14. Hoover's

**HEY! Anyone else noticed that Natalia Tena's initials are N.T…. same as Nymphadora Tonks…it's meant to be, people. And Natalia and Nymphadora sound…. similar, to say the least.**

They studied. They worked together, and hard. Jack being the nice guy that he was, left them to it, never once complaining when Dora chose Charlie over him. He seemed to understand everything, and backed off when the time came, knowing that sometimes all a girl needed was her best friend - even if that friend was so undeniably jealous he spent most of his time within distance of Jack grinding his teeth.

Where Charlie had hoped their relationship would have failed within a few months – _they would discover they were just too different, Jack would become frustrated with her childish ideals or Dora would realise her undying love for Charlie_ - he was gravely mistaken. Their relationship seemed to flourish, become closer and more comfortable, and Tonks more mature and sensible. They seemed to be always smiling, and Charlie found little hearts scrawled in the front pages of her charms textbook, and never once had she defaced a book, nor acted so incredibly _girly_.

She sported pink hair these days, except in lessons where she had the regulation brown, yet she still managed to get away with changing the tone. Only Snape seemed to have a problem with her changing hair colour, the rest of the professors seemed to enjoy her fluctuating character – she was confident, she was talkative, and she was ever so slightly annoying in a way that was purely Dora.

Christmas was fast approaching, and Nymphadora found herself promised constant letters over the holidays. She agreed to spend a only few days with Jack, the idea of a quiet holiday more appealing when all her free time had been spent tutoring Charlie.

Though she did not notice it building up inside of her, the stress of OWLs washed away as she departed Hogsmeade station. Their carriage was crowded: Bill, his friends, Miranda, Jack, Charlie and herself all squeezed onto the tiny seats, alternating between sitting on the floor and each others laps. The pressure had been building up for so long that she almost felt…wary, of returning back to school.

Her parents for waiting for her on the platform, like she knew they would. In her weekly letters she had not told them about Jack, only that she had made some friends and Jack was one of them. Charlie, she presumed, they would want to know more about.

However, Jack neither knew this, nor knew what her parents looked like, so as they jumped from the train he swung down to give her a long kiss, before waving to her and joining the crowd.

She turned, scarlet, to the open mouths of her parents.

She must have looked a sight. Bright red, with pink hair, and her bag swung over her shoulder. She had changed so slightly she had barely noticed it, but her parents, who had not seen her since the summer, would be sure to notice.

Andromeda was composed, if not a little shocked, but Ted did nothing to hide his surprise. "Nymphadora!" he said breathlessly, "who the _hell_-"

But Charlie was hugging her, and she didn't have patience for her parents to slowly figure out their little girl had grown up and developed hormones, so she left them to it and gave Bill and Miranda a brief but friendly hugs.

"Three boys!" her father choked out, "Nymphadora, we are going to have a talk!"

But she didn't have time for this either, as the Weasley's had arrived to welcome their sons home from school. Mrs. Weasley, round and cheery, rushed forward to grasp them, whilst their brothers and sister gaped at her.

"Oh! And you must be nymph-"

"Dora!" Charlie hissed at his mother, "she doesn't like Nymphadora, mum."

Her poor parents, she noticed, we left to gape, not entirely sure what had unfolded in front of them.

Charlie's ten year old twin brothers had just let off a firework, and the smallest child, Ginny, was tugging at Bill's hand to pick her up. It was a sea of red, every single member had the same freckled skin and ginger hair as Charlie had, and she felt suddenly that if they were so like him she might not be nervous around them after all.

"Hello, Mrs. Weasley." Dora said, extending her hand, "these are my parents…"

Small talk was made, Dora was introduced to every member of the Weasley clan, ("I'm George!", "Liar! I am!",) and with one last hug and a promise of her present arriving on Christmas eve, she left Charlie in the safe hands of his family and steeled herself for facing her own.

----

"It's just Jack, dad, I promise." She insisted, for maybe the fifth time, as she ate dinner. Nothing had changed around the house, it was just as pristine as it always had been, but her parents had become suddenly protective, and the idea that they might trust her on her own, to be her own independent young woman, became a false ideal.

"I'm just _friends_ with Bill and Charlie," she repeated, but none of it seemed to get through, and every sentence fell on deaf ears.

"But why can't you have any female friends?" her father pleaded. "Nymphadora, it isn't normal not to have-"

"Ted." Andromeda's tone was a warning, "it's brilliant she's making friends, regardless of who they are. It takes _time_."

"Three boys, 'Dromeda!" her father repeated desperately.

"Three _young men_, _one_ of which she is dating. And I think Nymphadora," her hand extended to brush her daughters cheek with a squeeze and smiled, "can look after herself quite well."

"Thanks mum."

"But _Dromeda_…."

Her father was uncomfortable, shifting in his seat and his hands curled around each other as he rung them on the tablecloth.

"Ted!" her mother snapped, that tone that made Nymphadora sit up straight and level her shoulders. Her father reacted similarly; he fell silent, trailed off and played with his spoon, tapping it against the tabletop with his fingers.

"She was sorted into Hufflepuff -to make _friends_ Teddy," her mother snapped, and stood to take a cheesecake from the counter. "Regardless of who those friends are, she is happy, and we should be also." She began to serve out a large helping to each of them, the plate hitting the centre of the table a little too hard.

They finished their dinner in silence, her father sulking as he ate his dessert. Nymphadora felt an odd sort of pride that her mother would defend her when it had always been her father that would jump to her defence.

---

Charlie's letters were few and far between. Where he had promised to write, he had failed quite dismally, and when he asked her what she had done over Christmas and she responded with mentions of Jack, he did not reply for six days.

Jack wrote to her every other day. Letters full of compassion, descriptions of his family get-togethers, how his family drove him crazy but he adored them all the same. He told her about how he would be spending Christmas dinner, how different muggles and wizards were at Christmas, and how would she mind popping over on the floo network Christmas eve to spend it with him and his family?

Her mother, so overjoyed that Nymphadora would be seeing a friend – a boyfriend no less! – Outside of school, began to select, wash and iron her daughter's best clothes for the occasion.

It was only when Dora emerged from the fireplace to the stares of Jack's mother, that she realised she had made an awful mistake.

Jack laughed as he hugged her. "You're not supposed to wear dress robes, Dora, I told you it was a muggle event!"

She was whisked through the motions of greeting Jack's parents, his sisters, his older brother and the family dog, all of which were not magical. Jack was the only member they knew of to attend Hogwarts.

"You can borrow some of my clothes," the oldest sister laughed, taking her by the hand and leading her up stairs to her room. "You'll be about my size."

The house was small, with four bedrooms for the children and a master bedroom. When he was home, Jack shared with his brother, whilst each sister had a room to her own. They seemed to get on, except for the odd squabble, but it appeared that Jack seemed most uncomfortable around his siblings. Where they had moved on, developed a bond, Jack had been left behind.

Where his other siblings had attended high school together, Jack had been sent away to boarding school, plunged into a new world, to learn new skills that he could not even share with his siblings as he had not come of age. He seemed as isolated as Nymphadora was among this sea of muggles.

They were crowded into a cold church to sing carols and wish each other merry Christmas, before wandering back to the family home with Jack's family, _all_ his family, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.

She was squeezed into an armchair, almost on her boyfriend's lap, to listen the friendly banter of the family. She ate mince pies, Christmas pudding, and watched them exchange gifts in silence, uncomfortable in the tight clothes of Jack's sister, all too aware that this wasn't her world.

But it was when one of his youngest cousins knocked over the bowl of popcorn in between them, that the differences between them became so apparent. Jack's aunt rose from the kafuffle with her hands on her hips and sighed motherly, tired way, and said, "Dora, dear, would you go grab the hoover from the kitchen for me?"

She felt a stab of horror and turned to Jack with a pleading look. Jack, however, on the opposite side of the room where he had been speaking with his grandmother, could do nothing but shrug and make a sweeping motion with his hands in a desperate bid to aid her.

It was like some weird game of charades she knew she would lose.

Numbly, she stumbled through the doors into the kitchen, fresh with the smells of Christmas, and evaluated the room for anything that might fit the description of a "hoover."

There were candles. And bowls, and plenty of other kitchen paraphernalia she recognised and used in her own home, but yet there was so much she didn't understand the meaning for.

There was a box, with a metallic ring and a hole through it, with buttons and dials and little knobs with numbers on them. There was a slotted box, with a lever, and an even larger cube with a window and more dials and knobs.

None of them fit the description of a device that might be used to collect popcorn.

Which left the dilemma of what to do. She could emerge in the living room empty handed, claiming that she couldn't see it, or else she could re-emerge with a completely wrong item, and look like an idiot in front of his entire family.

She stood there for a while, examining the different objects with growing insecurity. Until, finally:

"Dora, there you are!"

Jack's mother was there, concerned and understanding.

"I can't – I'm not sure which-," she explained clumsily, and the woman walked to the side of the room to grab a long, yellow device.

"A Hoover," she explained, "a vacuum cleaner. It sucks up pieces of things, dust and food and such, to clean the carpet. I don't suppose you have one in your house?"

Nymphadora shook her head. "My mother has spells for that."

"My sister doesn't know about Jack," she explained, "She wouldn't understand magic, not without Jack being able to show her himself. Non of her children are magical, and we always had to be so careful whilst he was growing up not to upset anyone." She began to wrap the plastic leads around the Hoover with the plug hanging limp from the end. "Jack was always fixing things that should have been broken, or changing the colour of his bedroom walls. Once," she laughed softly, "when he was younger, he had done something wrong. We sent him to his room, and all the light bulbs cut out. They wouldn't turn back on until we had apologised."

She began to wheel the vacuum cleaner from the room, and Nymphadora took it as a sign to follow. She appeared composed as she entered the living room, and said lightly, "I forgot that I had shut it away in the cupboard, poor Dora couldn't find the blasted thing!"

Nymphadora smiled sheepishly, her sense of panic vanishing so suddenly as she stood beside Jack next to the fireplace.

"One day," he said into her ear, "I'll show you what a slinky does."

**Ladies and Gents (are there any gents? speak up if you are!) I got my A Level results last week!! I got B, C and D. Hell yeah. So, I'm off to university in September to study British Sign Language and interpreting! XD**

…**Just thought I'd spread the news. How did any one else do in exams? **


	15. Miranda

**Resolution:**

_**The state or quality of being resolute; firm determination. **_

_**A resolving to do something. **_

_**A course of action determined or decided on.**_

_**An explanation, as of a problem or puzzle; a solution**_

**Incursus**_**to attack the mind**_

She could smell it before she could see it – the metallic twist in the air, the tang in her mouth. Stray magic, with bad intentions.

With one look to Charlie, who had not noticed anything out of the ordinary, she stopped; her head cocked to one side, where she heard, distantly, the cry of a curse echoed through the corridors.

"What?" Charlie asked, looking around him. "Dora, what-"

She quietened him with a finger, before turning to rush down the corridor they had just passed.

It had been Charlie's idea for her to escort him on prefect duties. As she had finished her homework and Jack had astronomy, she had agreed to wander the halls with him. After all, they had not had a chance to really talk for some time, and when it came down to the basics Nymphadora missed his cheerful company.

She loved Jack, and Bill was fabulous to be around, and although both were more reliable than Charlie, nothing could replace his charm. Charlie was sweet, and carefree, and a refreshing touch to the hard work ethic of her boyfriend. Charlie was the opposite to Jack, he was loud, he was often obnoxious, and he never wrote an essay before the night it was due in, and sometimes this was exactly what she needed.

They turned round the corner, to see nothing but the empty corridor. There was little of interest there, except a few fading candles.

"Dora, what's up with you?" Charlie had grabbed her elbow, swinging her round to face him. "I'm supposed to be patrolling the east corridors, you're going in the wrong direction!"

"I think we should go…" how could she describe that her instinct was telling her there was something out of place? What fact could she rely on, what proof did she have that there was something amiss?

"Follow me, Charles," she said stubbornly, yanking her arm from his grasp.

"Charles," he muttered bitterly, but followed her nonetheless.

He didn't seem to question her, he never really did when it came down to it, always complained along the way, but followed her regardless.

Nymphadora was not sure where she going, nor any idea what she was looking for. Or, if she did find what she was expecting to find – dreading to find, charged to find – then what could she do about it?

Would books and knowledge pay off when she really needed it?

Another corner, a turn to the right, and a stray classroom to the left. Pressing her ear to the door, she listened. A faint, muffled sound, "incursus!"

Charlie huffed behind her, disgruntled at being dragged half way across the castle for no apparent reason. He hadn't thought to take out his wand; in fact it was tucked into his belt hanging loosely at his side.

"Dora-"

At Charlie's voice, something changed. The people inside stopped, their breathing coarse; with one sweep of her wand, the door was open.

Two boys, seventh years – she knew them, one had glued her to the ceiling in her second year, and the other had watched and laughed. They had left her there for almost two days before someone found her and told a teacher. – And Miranda, Bill's girlfriend, writhing on her knees with tears dripping off her chin.

A thin, blue blur of a line stretched from her temple to the boy's wand.

She knocked him back against the wall, before he could react. A curse shot her way, but she reflected it, hit him square in the chest and with a squelch they were pinned to the wall, legs and arms splayed. Miranda burst into tears, and stumbled to the side of the room, crying hysterically.

Revenge was a beautiful, beautiful thing, when you knew you had a reason for it.

She heard Charlie swear behind her at the sight of it all, but she took no time in wrenching Miranda to her feet. Ensuring the boys were stuck firmly to the wall, she said, "Charlie, would you go get professor McGonagall, please?"

He instead approached her, standing at her side with his mouth hanging open. "I barely even saw you _do_ this!"

She huffed. "Charlie, McGonagall please?"

"I mean," he gestured around him, "how the hell did you know where they were? How was it even possible for you to hex them, they're twice your size!"

"Size isn't important with magic, Charlie, you know that. Now, get McGonagall, please!" she snapped tiredly.

Miranda had straightened up, her tears under control. She offered a shaky hand towards her, and Nymphadora took it, drawing her to her chest for a long, warm hug.

"You _glued_ them to the _wall_, Dora!"

"_Charlie_!"

"Ruddy fine then!" he turned on his heel, marched from the room and stormed down the corridor, his voice echoing back at them as he ranted about bossy girls, and how the hell had she done that?

She watched the boys attempt to squirm, still holding the girl to her side.

"Miranda?" she asked, "what…?"

"I was just wandering the halls," she sobbed, "I couldn't study, so I thought I'd go down to the kitchens, and I got cornered…"

"Miranda," Nymphadora asked softly, "what was that spell?"

She couldn't answer, as Charlie and professor McGonagall had burst into the classroom, wrapped in a tartan dressing gown and hairnet.

The boys were unstuck, Miranda taken to the hospital wing, and Nymphadora taken for questioning in the professors office.

It was past midnight when Charlie left her for his own common room. She barely slept, fitful when she did, and found herself waking up early to sit outside the hospital wing at six in the morning, awaiting Madam Pomfrey to let her in.

At seven thirty she was joined by Bill and Jack, both pale and edgy with lack of sleep, and a disgruntled looking Charlie.

"McGonagall told us last night," Bill said, and there was a slight desperation to his voice, "but we weren't allowed to see her. Is she okay?"

Nymphadora nodded, unable to speak and Jack held out his hand to her to lift her to her feet. "Dora," he strained, "if it weren't for you…who knows what would have happened."

"Did we ever find out what _really_ happened?" Charlie asked irritably, a yawn escaping roughly.

"incursus," she choked out, and the older boys let out a groan of understanding.

Charlie looked between them, obviously annoyed. "Whats incursus do?"

"It replays your worst memory, over and over. It's an attack on your mind." Jack whispered. "Where did they learn to master that?"

"Are you kidding?" Bill snorted, "they're Slytherins. Snape probably hands out pamphlets with these sorts of things in them!"

Not long after, they were allowed inside, Miranda pale and drowsy from her medicine, sat up in bed awaiting them. "I thought I heard voices outside."

Nymphadora let them surround her, hug and touch her bruised temple tenderly. She watched from a distance, perched on the edge of the bed opposite, watching them interact from afar.

"Dora," Miranda lifted her head, her voice scratchy. "Oh Dora, if it weren't…"

"I didn't really do anything," she replied softly, "it was really just luck."

Charlie straightened up to his full height. "Dragging me halfway across the castle was luck, was it? You knew something was wrong, and you went to check it out. How many students would do that?"

She blushed, and looked down at her hands, scrunched in her lap.

"Dora, " Miranda said, reaching out her hand as she had done the night before, "come here, I want to give you a hug!"

She was included in the circle, the joyful little moment they were having, and she relished in it. Often she forgot how far she had come, in drifts of loneliness she retreated back into herself, convinced she held no place in the social structure of her friendship group.

The bell soon rang, and they were forced to leave Bill and Jack, who both had a free period, for lessons. Thankfully, they had history of magic, so she abandoned any hope of taking notes, and promised herself she would read the chapter later that day, and began to talk to Charlie instead.

Head on one arm, she played with her quill on the desk. Charlie was watching her concernedly; chewing the inside of his lip as he thought through what he could say to possibly help her fragile state.

Finally, she muttered, "I'm tired."

"Did you sleep at all last night?" he asked.

"Not particularly." She let her forehead hit the desk, and she groaned. "Charlie, why are people so mean?" she asked.

"Syltherin's are all mean-"

"Not Slytherin's, _everybody_." Nymphadora sighed, and peeked through the gap of her arm to look at him. "Even Hufflepuff's, who are supposed to be loyal, supposed to make friends easily, are mean. And noble brave Gryffindor's, they're mean too."

"Has someone been annoying you again?" he asked, and the edge to his voice made her regret her speech almost immediately – Charlie had proved more than once, he was not afraid to stand up for her, even if it meant his own house lost points because of it.

"No, not this time," she replied. "But don't you just think the whole world is utterly horrible? There's people out there who think it's fun, a game to hurt people. It just makes me want to cry, or scream, or" she sighed, "_something_, don't you even want to just do _something_?"

She could tell from his face, he didn't understand one bit, but in true Charlie style, he nodded. "Sure Dora," he said lightly. "And when you're a healer, I guess you can."

Nymphadora sighed again, and ran her thumb over the spine of her defence against the dark arts textbook. "I suppose I will."


	16. Auror

The world seemed to move quickly around her, vast and disorientated and blurry around the edges.

Nymphadora found herself locked in the library increasingly, studying for exams that seemed so close, that seemed to get closer with every blink, so she struggled for breath when she thought about them.

She walked with a constant hunch for the books on her shoulder. Her shoulders were permanently tense, the muscles tight and sore from the stress of what she felt she couldn't face.

Every lesson took the life out of her. She became unable to eat, slept fitfully and became withdrawn from everyone close to her. Jack especially took the damage, but they shared the same tension and never once did he become angry with her when she snapped. Jack was calm, and collected, and sweet to the point she felt almost annoyed with his security at times.

The moment always passed. When it came down to it, she needed him.

Before she could even register spring had returned, it was six weeks until her exams. To add to her misery, they were each given an appointment with their head of house for careers advice.

It was only when she stopped to look at the list on the common room wall that she noticed she would not be meeting with professor Sprout at all, but professor McGonagall.

She prepared herself for a formal meeting. She would state her passion to become a healer, McGonagall would discuss how this was a difficult but fulfilling path to choose, and then offer a list of grades she would need to obtain and her predicted grades for that year.

She was completely prepared, but her resolve shattered the moment she entered McGonagall's office.

She was not alone. There was a tall, dark man standing in the corner of the room, examining a book from a shelf. McGonagall sat at her desk, her arms folded in front of her, not serious at all but looking amused.

"Miss Tonks, please sit down."

She realised with a sinking feeling that her hair was still purple from lunch, but it was too late to change it now she had made herself acquainted. She perched herself on the chair in front the desk.

"This," McGonagall gestured towards the man, who had placed the book back onto the shelf to smile down at her, "is Kingsley Shacklebolt. He's an Auror for the ministry of magic."

Nymphadora had done nothing wrong, at least, nothing serious enough to merit calling in an Auror. She had been lying low for the past few months, concentrating more on her studies than joining Charlie in his pranks and games.

The man stepped forward, his smile broadening, and he stretched out his hand to shake hers. His grip was firm, and he held on longer than was comfortable, but she couldn't help but watch him as closely as he was watching her.

"I'm here," he said, and his voice buried deep inside of her, rumbling through her ribcage, instilling something before she was even sure what it was. "To offer you a career opportunity you might not have otherwise considered. You may not be aware of this," he shared a look with McGonagall, "but it has been quite a few years since we have found anyone suitable for this job emerging from the ranks of Hogwarts."

Her throat was dry. "Why are you talking to me about it?" Nymphadora asked softly.

Shacklebolt let out another cavernous laugh. "Nymphadora, was it?"

Too nervous to correct him, she nodded.

"Nymphadora," - she winced - "on your professor's recommendation, we were made aware of your talents-"

"I don't have any talents."

"- And your enthusiasm to learn, not to mention your sense of personal justice." It was clear on his face he knew she was uncomfortable. Nymphadora herself could feel the blush high and warm on her cheeks. "Auror's require bravery, strength and ambition. You have the grades, you appear to have all the right attitudes, so all I require is your interest."

"I'm nothing special," she muttered. "What makes you think I'm cut out to be any of those things?"

"Miss Tonks," Kingsley waved his wand at the door, and it opened, slamming into the wall. The contents on a shelf shook violently. "How about we take a walk?"

----

She knew she should have felt uncomfortable around this man – hadn't she been the girl who recoiled at a simple brush of the hand, not so very long ago? Something comforted her. Maybe it was the authority status – he had a badge, the qualifications to prove he could protect and serve.

And most of all, he was _lovely_.

They laughed easily together. Kingsley showed her where he had hexed a statue to dance and sing "the monster mash" at every passing student in his sixth year, and she understood why McGonagall had not been brought along.

"It's a false misconception," Kingsley told her, "that only Gryffindor's are picked to be aurors, and it wasn't always like this, there used to be floods of applications in the heat of war, but now the ministry is lucky to have one or two every few years." He ran a hand over his bald shining head, "so we look to handpicking the applicants. We asked professor Dumbledore to give us a list of potential students, and your name came up."

"How many others were on the list?" she asked.

"Quite a few," Shacklebolt admitted, "but we found you particularly interesting. A metamorphmagus, top of most your classes, and secure enough in yourself that you don't mind a bit of hard work. And," he added, "I must admit, there are considerably less women on the force than men."

When she said nothing, he continued to talk. "I've only one more interview to give today" – she had been in an interview? She hadn't noticed – "but personally, I would like it if you would send me an owl if you're interested."

Dora nodded, dry mouthed and dumbstruck. "You really think I'm up to it?"

"That's really your decision, Miss Tonks."

He winked, and handed her a scrap of parchment with his full name and department on it. "I hope to hear from you soon," he aid, and began to head for McGonagall's office.

"Who else are you interviewing?" she blurted.

"I really can't say," he said honestly, one hand on his heart as if he were swearing it to her. "But I'm sure you'll hear before long. It's a boy," he added, with another wink and entered the office.

----

It wasn't Charlie. He had no idea what had happened that day when she joined them for dinner, still a little shell-shocked.

"Sounds like an equal opportunities act to me," Charlie said bitterly.

"Charlie!" Bill scorned, but his brother shrugged.

"Think about it," he continued breezily. "She's a metamorph-whatever. And she's a girl. Some bloke in the ministry starts harking on about how there aren't enough minorities in the higher divisions of the ministry, and they need more freaks-"

"More _what_?" she snapped.

"-And more women," he finished, "so they hire dear Dora here, and everybody wins."

"Oh piss off!" she hissed. "I didn't even say I'd take it."

"Why not?" Bill asked. "This is a chance of a bloody life time, Dora!"

"Yes it is, but it doesn't mean it's my only life-determining choice, does it? Just because you're good at something it doesn't mean it should be the calling of your life and the people who say you're good at something shouldn't make your decisions for you."

"Deep." Charlie scoffed.

She looked to Jack, who had been silent throughout the entire conversation. "What do you think?" she asked.

"I think," he said slowly, "that you should consider this carefully for a while. That it's up to you, not up to us."

Just for once, she thought, I wish he'd take a bloody side.

----

She found herself writing and rewriting her letter to Shacklebolt, first declining, then accepting, then declining again.

It wasn't like she had the time to decide. At the end of this year, she had to pick which subjects she would take at NEWT level, and depending on the choices she made, she would have to pick between completely different subjects. And if she picked the wrong choice, she would be studying for the wrong job, and then what would she be left with?

About an hour later, tired but resolute, she set down her quill.

_Dear Mr. Shacklebolt_, she wrote, _I would like to accept your offer._

**I'm not really popping them out like I used to, but sometimes it's hard. I'd love to know what you think. Bring it on.**


	17. Wading

**First of all, sorry for the stupidly long update wait. First, my parents dragged me to Scotland, then I started university and my damn sociable roommates wouldn't let me write. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.**

**It's starting to get intense…**

_**Wading**_.

The evening before the Hufflepuff match Nymphadora sat with Charlie in the Gryffindor common room, a chess set perched between them. It had been a long day, with hard pushed lessons and what seemed to be an endless stream of homework that evening.

Charlie was not his usual giddy self that she was so accustomed to the night before a match. He seemed so introverted somehow, absorbed in his own thoughts. Strange for Charlie, who was so usually so…. dense, and talkative.

"What are you thinking?" she asked softly, moving her castle to threaten his queen.

She had expected a long, drawn out explanation – that he was worried about his potions exam, or how he would miss his brother the following year.

This was, of course, before she realised she had in fact been thinking of Jack, when he became absorbed in his own thoughts. Charlie would never talk of these things – did he even feel them at all? So content he was in his own skin, sure of his own abilities and his relationships with his own family and friends.

"Do you think…" he began, a note of mischievousness on his lip, so she drew in a breath of excitement. "That the Slytherins need a little extra pre-match excitement?"

"Oh Charlie," she said disapprovingly, but her heart was hammering all the same, with the possibility of a new prank, of something to shake up her predictable lifestyle that had seemed to take over her life. "What do you have in mind?"

He said nothing, only stood up with his wand in hand, his bag and the chessboard discarded on the floor by the fire.

Dora followed him to the Slytherin dungeons, waiting until all the Slytherins had wandered inside to their beds. As the last few stragglers – prefects, it seemed – returned to the common room, they heard the password, Dungbeetle.

To be sure, they waited in hiding between the folds of an extravagant curtain that lined the back wall of the dungeon, a large tapestry with the Slytherin crest and a family tree of all the major families that had attended the House.

She tried so desperately to ignore her mother's name, delicate by heavy at the bottom of the Black family.

"I have an idea," Charlie whispered softly, his head jerked upwards, examining the stitches of the curtain. "Help me get this down."

She wasn't going to ask what he had planned, so that if they were caught – and with all the clatter and ripping of material, she was very surprised when they were not – she could at least claim innocence to the whole thing.

It was well past three in the morning after they had finished. Charlie murmured the password and went to poke his head through the entrance. Grabbing his arm, she pulled him back, "I'll do it," she insisted, and concentrated hard on the image of a Slytherin girl she knew from her astronomy class. She had once thrown Dora's telescope over the side of the tower.

Discarding her tie, she clambered through and examined the common room. When she hadn't told him not to enter after a quick sweep of the room, Charlie invited himself inside, dragging on the long rolls of the tapestry.

A few swift spells and they stood back to admire their handy work, the tapestry hung loosely from the far wall.

"What should we write on it?" Charlie asked, bouncing from foot to foot, his hands clapping together noisily. She silenced him.

"Shouldn't you have already thought of that?" she hissed, glancing between the tunnels leading to the dormitories. "Be quick, Charlie, we probably don't have much time."

They settled on a rude gesture and a few deftly flick of her wand later, and the tapestry snake wrapped itself in a note and turned purple. For a finishing touch, Charlie threw a stink bomb into the tunnel leading to the boy's dormitories, before they high tailed it from the dungeons in a fit of laughter.

The next day, at breakfast, they waited for oncoming cry of disgust and McGonagall's inevitable swoop of the Hufflepuff table to find the culprit. Luckily for them, the professor never assumed it would be a Gryffindor who had thought up the whole thing, and Nymphadora seemed such an unlikely candidate.

However, where McGonagall had been easy to fool, Bill and Jack were not. They ate in silence like scalded children, the two older students furious that they would risk detentions at such a crucial time.

Charlie shot a grin at her across the table. Every time one of the Slytherin boys passed their table, the rancid smell of rotten eggs trailed after them, and not even the girls from their own house would sit more than a few feet near them.

They hung back from the others as they strolled down to the Quidditch pitch, grinning to each other every time a stomach turning smell drifted across the misty air towards them.

"Those two are so boring," Charlie whispered in her ear, and she nodded in agreement. She knew exams were approaching, no one was working harder for them than she was, so why were they so tense with her? What was wrong with them having a little harmless fun before were forced to do nothing _but_ working?

Hufflepuff were, of course, flattened. Slytherin had been winning straight for years, almost undefeated, and the Hufflepuff team was so bad it was almost embarrassing.

It was proof of how much time Nymphadora had spent with the Gryffindor's that in their common room that night the students were patting her back and congratulating her house on a good game. Their words meant nothing, she had no compassion for her house, and she neither wanted nor cared if they won.

Jack was working in his dormitory, and though she knew he was still angry with her, she found herself increasingly placid to the idea, humming along with the radio a sixth year had cranked to full volume. Tapping her quill on the parchment to the beat happily, Charlie lunging on the sofa beside her, she stretched out.

"I always work best with music," she told Charlie, who was reading from her essay with a frown. His mouth followed the words silently as he scribbled them onto his own parchment.

But it was when one song came on that she was almost dancing in her chair in excitement. "I love this song!"

Charlie let out a snort and jerked his head to the side; "well there's about twenty odd guys who would love to share it with you."

It was true. Boys across the common room were watching her intently as she swayed in her seat and tapped her foot. Yet none, she noticed, were looking the slight bit agitated or aggressive.

The world had shifted and she hadn't realised it.

She blushed. "I'm with Jack," she murmured aloud, and it was almost like a reminder to herself. She was with Jack.

"Jack's boring," Charlie muttered. "The only exciting thing he's ever done in his life is getting you to smile. He passed a glance at her, his smile gone, his joking tone replaced with concern. "'Cept you don't smile so much these days."

Of course, it was easy for her to ignore the signs. "I'm just tired," she explained, "and Jack's stressed about his exams. We all are."

"Then why," Charlie said, and she had an awful feeling he would make some sort of sense, "isn't he spending every moment of his free time with you?" he leant towards her, his voice deep. He sounded like his brother as he told her, "when in the last two month have the two of you spent more than half an hour together-"

When she opened her mouth, he interrupted, "without studying, Dora."

Her mouth tightened, she said nothing. Charlie was nodding, though he looked more sorry for her than triumphant, and his hand came to rest gently on hers. "He's leaving soon, Dora," he said quietly, and the world became numb around her. "I don't want to be the bad guy, you know I only want you to be happy, but," he paused, and lifted his hand to sweep across the common room, "there are loads of guys out there, plenty who now they've had a chance to notice how great you are, all would love to get you know you a little."

She couldn't look to where he was pointing, to filled with reality. What would become of their relationship after he left? Letters, what, maybe once, twice a week? The occasional meeting in Hogsmeade, granted he could get the time off work and the brief meeting in her holidays?

"Will you miss Bill?" she asked as her heart grew cold, spreading to her stomach and down, through every limb, until even her fingers were numb.

Charlie shrugged, she knew he was hurting inside yet he would never show it. Did anyone know Charlie Weasley better than she did? –Perhaps his own mother, she concluded, but even Molly wouldn't know the complexities of him, the intimacies. How could she know when Charlie was troubled when she had six other children to worry about?

"I guess I will," Charlie said offhandedly, "but he's my brother, I love him, but he drives me nuts. I am annoyed he's leaving me alone to deal with Fred and George, though."

Glad for the change of subject, Nymphadora said with a forced laugh, "oh, they can't be that bad!"

He snorted. "Further proof you haven't spent significant time around my family. Just wait till next year. They are going to do your head in."

She highly doubted that – how hard could two eleven-year-old boys be, really?

Charlie stood up and stretched, his head thrown back in a yawn. Nymphadora watched him, smaller than his brother, solid, years of Quidditch paying off.

She could see why the girls went mad for him. He was, after all, the star of their year, charismatic and an excellent laugh. Before she knew him, really _knew him_, Charlie had had strings of girlfriends. One by one, he took the girls to Hogsmeade, was caught snogging in the common room and sneaking through the corridors after hours. He had a reputation.

A reputation that, for the past year or so he had yet to live up to.

As he walked her back to the Hufflepuff common room – a position Jack had previously dominated- she watched him closely. He was talking animatedly about some Quidditch move or another, peeking around corners for any sign of Filch, despite him making so much noise it would be hard for them not to be found.

He hadn't changed. He was still Charlie Weasley; he was still gorgeous, charismatic, and fun. The girls hadn't stopped throwing themselves at him, but he had stopped taking offers.

"Charlie," she said lightly, "why haven't you taken any girls on dates this year?"

He raised an eyebrow coyly. "The right girl won't let me," he said, and they walked on.


	18. Sinking

When Nymphadora was growing up, she could never understand why her parents wouldn't let her stay with her muggle grandparents for more than a few hours. After all, they knew of Ted's magical abilities, and his wife was a witch, so what was the problem with Nymphadora?

Her family seemed to be the worst of extremes. Her mother's family was obsessive, blood perfect and grand. Her father's family were, well…_muggle_.

It was rare that her father spoke of his life before Hogwarts. She had never questioned this when she was younger – in her eyes had life even been worth mentioning before Hogwarts? When all there was to speak of was a home life and a near muggle existence. But this was before she began thinking of her life as before and after Charlie, and Hogwarts seemed meagre compared to him.

Ted Tonks's parents expected nothing short of muggle behaviour in their home. It was not that they were anti-magic, they often questioned her about her studies, all the grandparent-like questions – what subject did she enjoy most? What were her ambitions for the future? And most asked, why wouldn't she attend a muggle school? Learn magic on the side, like it were some mere hobby, that she couldn't just throw her life into it, that it's wasn't a part of her.

Nymphadora was asked to dress "correctly", speak "correctly", and to use all muggle appliances and devices, including their money. When she was with her parents they excused her from these things. But when her cousins surrounded her she had no choice but to bribe them into some sort of slavery, to complete her tasks for her.

Her grandparent's house had been full of pictures, photos, crayon shaped monstrosities, yet none of these belonged to her. When she asked her mother, her reply was hesitant.

"We have no muggle photos, and you never spent long enough with them to draw any sort of picture."

Her childhood had been spent in hiding: she was not allowed to be herself around the few visitors she had, and her parents no longer found her busts of creativity surprising.

In her world, she was normal, and in the other she was simple. A stupid child, incapable of even turning on the dishwasher when asked.

This wasn't to say she was in any way forgotten, she had just need been special. Her parents loved her dearly, but it was in these lonely episodes her self-esteem plummeted. Empty, wary of social situations, a young Nymphadora never learnt she was so very valuable.

"What is it about me?"

They had given up on homework and revision for the night. It was, after all, a Friday evening, and she had to relax sometime, surely.

Her head in Jack's lap, she felt his ribcage vibrate as he let out a murmur of "hmm?"

"Why do you bother with me?" she asked, "I'm hardly…. well, I'm hardly…_Miranda_, am I?"

He glanced over to the girl, toying with Bill's hair and giggling as she ran a finger over his tender ear – she had pierced it for him just the night before, a tiny silver stud barely visible beneath his shaggy mop of hair.

"I think you're fabulous," Jack said lovingly.

Nymphadora couldn't accept that meagre excuse for an answer in the mood she was in. she needed more, she needed to know _why_.

He was reading his book again, thinking he had jumped the hurdle in good grace. Just the sight of it annoyed her, how could he sit there quite calmly, when she was feeling so low? So tired, desperate to know she had a reason, any sort of purpose.

He couldn't have known what she was feeling, she was aware of that, but that just made her all the more miserable.

Charlie would know.

Weren't couples supposed to know each other inside and out? Wasn't she supposed to know what grades he was aiming for? His favourite honey duke's chocolate? His middle name, for Merlin's sake!

She knew Charlie's. All O's, except an E in Defence and Magical creatures. He would do anything for a praline and toffee chocolate bar, and his middle name was Septimus, named for his grandfather.

Dora stood up in a flush of anger. Jack watched her in surprise as she quite aggressively spat out, "what's your favourite chocolate?"

He blinked. "I just like the normal, plain stuff. Why?"

Of course, she thought tightly, everything about him was plain, and normal.

Their whole relationship had been plain, and so very normal. Bittersweet.

So wasn't he good enough for her?

--------

Charlie was playing Quidditch energetically, sweeping in between the posts in an elegance he had never yet achieved on the ground.

She slipped into the seats next to his discarded backpack. In a rush of emotion she had stormed from the Gryffindor common room. Jack had followed her, begging her to him over and over what he had done wrong – had he done anything amiss? She wasn't sure. – Until she had turned to the Hufflepuff corridor did he leave her alone?

She waited fifteen minutes until he was sure she had given up, and raced down to the Quidditch pitch.

Dora couldn't even be sure why she was there, only to see him was enough. Just that flash of red hair was calming to her, enough that she considered leaving again, having had her fill of him, but Charlie saw her as she stood, and gave a hearty wave, both hands in the air clinging onto his broom with one leg.

Waving back, she resolved to wait.

Half an hour later he swooped down, jumping the last few feet from his broom in a bout of acrobatics that made her heart leap. "Heya Dora," he said, all sweaty and red cheeked, "how long you been waiting?"

When she didn't answer, he raised an eyebrow inquisitively. She was watching him, tears in her eyes, the note of regret on her lips as it all became so clear to her: she had made the biggest mistake.

"Dora?" Charlie asked concernedly, and laughed awkwardly. "Is it me? Do I have something on my face?"

_Of course it's you, Charlie,_ she thought. _It's always been you_.

-----

She, of course, said nothing to Charlie. She lay on her bed, having faked a glance at her watch and rushing back to the castle, a breathless goodbye yelled over one shoulder.

Around eleven o'clock, a girl from her dormitory peered around her bed-curtains. "Tonks?" she asked, and there was a rare hint of kindness in her voice. "Your boyfriend is waiting outside the entrance. He says it's urgent."

She rolled over to face her. "Tell him to piss off." she murmured, "I can't see him right now."

Biting her lip, the girl sat down on the bed sheets. "Tonks, if there's one think I knew about boys," she said, "it's that they don't take hints. If he's done something wrong, he probably doesn't know what it is."

She thought about this for a second, and concluded that it probably wasn't Jack that she was angry with, it was herself.

Heaving herself from the mattress, Nymphadora lifted herself to her feet and took a quick glance in the mirror.

Wandering downstairs, she slipped through the door to the basement entrance. Sure enough, Jack was there, waiting, pale and broken under the candles.

How did people do this, she thought bitterly, as her heart thumped in her chest. Did it get easier with time, would she stop hating herself quicker if she knew it had never been right to begin with?

When she _realised_ she had been lying to herself all along?

The look on her face seemed to tell him what was going to happen before it did, but it didn't seem to help, his face still crumpled as she told him, his spirit seemed to collapse as she muttered those awful words.

"I just can't see you anymore."

**It's rare, but I LIKE this chapter. I'm not sure why. **

**A lot of you have said how much Jack annoyed you. So I got rid of him. Too bad.**

**Thanks for all the love.**


	19. Drowning

**Drowning**.

_In which Charlie finally _gets her_ and Jack avoids her._

She had convinced herself that it would be easier without Jack, that she didn't love him, that it wasn't right and he would be abandoning her for the real world. None of this seemed to work.

And what was worse, she did not feel as thought she had done the right thing at all. She was Bill less, she missed Jack terribly – although she had not loved him, he had been her best friend. She could do nothing but yearn for her best friend.

When she suggest this to Charlie, who had been ecstatic as she told him the news the next day at the Hufflepuff table (she hadn't dared to sit in her usual spot) he had laughed shortly. "Dora, the boy needs time to get over you. Give him a bit of space before you try to make buddies with him."

Lowly, she asked, "How long does that take?" but he had merely shrugged.

It was no help to her and especially Jack that exams were only two weeks away. She had no time to dwell, none of the deserved mourning period with the work piling on.

Not capable of being alone, but too suffocated by the crowds, Nymphadora spent her remaining free time in the back of the library, hidden between the shelves with Charlie.

The boy was surprisingly supportive, only asking how she was dealing with life when she really felt awful, although this could have been his male incompetence shining through, and not just an ability to recognise emotions.

Most of all, he never left her alone, and when she told him to stud, he actually bloody did. Whilst his other friends strove for his attention and time, Nymphadora never once had to strive for it. Charlie was there without asking, waiting for her outside her common room in the morning and walking her back in the evening. He joined her at the Hufflepuff common room for meals (all the other students had left her alone because of this) and studying with her into the late hours of the night.

Charlie eased away the darker edges of her world. He soothed her; helping to forget she much she loathed herself for what she had done. Charlie steeped her loneliness by almost smothering her, not once in the few weeks since she broke Jack's heart had he left her alone. Only when she slept – excluding the times when she fell asleep on the Gryffindor sofas, or the foot of Charlie's bed in a pile of parchment and library books – did she gain privacy.

Charlie believed he was her crutch, that he somehow dominated the right to know everything she felt, every heartache, every bout of loneliness. Charlie thought he knew her inside and out, back to front, when he had only really scraped the surface.

His pledge to get to know her inner being came at the worst time. She threw herself, and Charlie with her, into her exams, leaving nothing but each other and an impossible workload to think of.

OWLs finished on the same day as NEWTs, with Bill and Jack's defence exam on the Friday morning, and the herbology OWL that afternoon.

When she had chosen to let Jack out of her life, she never once thought that Bill would follow. Like it was his obligation, Bill had not spoken with her until Jack did.

Their final meal at Hogwarts was an emotional one. Until she had met the seventh years, she had never noticed how depressing ending school could be. Seven years of their life finished, their childhoods gone. The era of extended deadlines and few consequences snatched away so suddenly. She had always been ecstatic to return home before, but now that she had…friends? Charlie… she could understand the trauma of the whole damn thing.

After Dumbledore had spoken, she picked herself up and slipped towards the Gryffindor table. None of the teachers seemed to notice, or if they had, reasoned that she needed this, that it was okay for her, that perhaps a little inter-house unity was a good thing.

Poking Charlie on the shoulder, she sat on the side furthest from Jack, with Bill and Miranda between them. Jack couldn't even look at germ too broken to face her just yet. But with hours left to ay goodbye and apologise in some desperate way, she had only now for a chance.

They finished eating, and she hadn't yet spoken with him. Why was this so hard for her when they had dated for the better part of eight months? Jack her innermost secrets, how was this difficult?

The Gryffindor's were beginning to disperse. Seizing her chance, she leapt from her seat, and grabbed his hand. Startled, pale, he turned to her and swallowed.

She hadn't thought this through, not really. With nothing to say, she smiled weakly.

Smiling back, he said hoarsely, "I got into the ministry."

"That's great," she said, though her voice was not she own. "When do you start?"

He couldn't even look her in the eye. The crowds milled around them. Suspended, separate from the other students, Jack barely a student at all. This was their moment, but was it really a moment at all? Was it really anything, other than a fall from grace?

Was she anything but a disgrace?

"A month," he said, the ground more comforting than her. "They need my NEWTs first, but I'm pretty confident."

"Yeah, of course," Nymphadora muttered. Almost all the students were gone now, just them and a few stragglers, and the Weasley's waiting in the doorway.

She wondered how people were not permanently crumbled, when the world threw them so far. No wonder Jack couldn't look at her, she had not had the strength to look at herself this morning.

"I got a flat," he continued on, "I'll be moving out of my parents within the month, I guess. It's even connected to the floo network, so," he swallowed hard, "I could visit yours in the holidays and-"

"Jack."

"-No, Dora, let me finish." He was _there_. Standing in front of her, his hand cupping her chin and she couldn't pull away. It wasn't right, it wasn't good for her to lead him on, to give him any sort of false hope. It wasn't best for either of them, and most of all it wasn't healthy to hold on.

He wasn't Charlie.

"We could make it work," he said, and his voice was shallow and rough, there was something desperate in his tone and she wanted to believe him, she really did. "We're good, Dora, we're damn good together. Take me back."

Nymphadora hadn't realised it, but she was crying with him, her face pressed into the palm of his hand, his touch warm and real when she felt so numb. "Jack," she said, and it was all she needed to.

Taking her cheek from his fingers, she pulled away, put some distance between them. "I love you," she said, and his mouth lifted briefly in a smile, "but I can't do this. It's just not going to work."

How often had she heard those words on the muggle television, in books or on the radio dramas her mother loved? How cliché, how true they were.

"I'll write," Jack said, and turned into the crowd. He was just another student.

Charlie was there, she knew that. His arms wrapped around her, her head pressed into his shoulder. The students all left, the two of them standing alone in the hall. Nymphadora sobbed.

Minutes later, she lifted herself up and dried her eyes on a tissue that had been handed to Charlie sometime during her misery. Taking it, she turned away, too ashamed to even look at the boy, her eyes sore.

Charlie perched himself on a newly cleared table, and said nothing. He seemed to spend all his time watching her these days, like he was figuring her out piece by piece through the little chunks of detail she offered him. Bill was nowhere, tending to Jack most likely, and it was odd to see just the one solitary Weasley when she was so used to them as a group.

He said nothing, only took her arm and escorted her to the Hufflepuff common room.

---

They had not bothered trying to sit with the seventh years the next day. The train was speeding on; leaving Hogwarts, leaving what she hoped was the worst days of her school life yet.

With Charlie the only friendly face, she sat amongst his friends. They talked excitedly and promised to keep in touch over the holidays. Nymphadora watched the scenery skip by, leaving Charlie to socialise.

But Charlie didn't jump to opportunity. Instead he sat quite silently, pushed up against her in the crowded space. "Missing Jack?" he asked.

She shrugged, but didn't turn to look at him, for fear he might be able to read her. "I do. But it's good this way, isn't? Better to fizzle out, or something."

He nodded. "Something like that."

She nodded numbly. The world outside was growing dark with the threat of rain, and as the neared London the world seemed to dim with her mood.

"Will you write to me, Charlie?" she asked, and this time she turned fully to face him, seriousness on her face. Pleading.

"Every day, if you want me too."

She knew he wouldn't. Charlie was little more than a yes-man when it came to pleasing her. It was sweet, but little help when it came to getting things done.

Kings Cross was close now. The excitement rose in the carriage, the students craning their necks to look from the window. Nymphadora didn't care to lean out of the way, pressed up against the cold glass, uncaring and unsympathetic to the emotional students around her.

The train pulled into the station, the children rose and grabbed for their trunks. Nymphadora remained seated, and because of this, so did Charlie. Waiting for the students to disappear – she would not tolerate the crowd in her dark mood – they stood. Charlie lifted her trunk from the shelves, pulled on his coat, and carried hers from the carriage. Seconds later he emerged with his own.

Their parents were stood together in polite conversation. Her mother had always taught the value of decent intellectual conversation, and she had learnt from an early age how to command it. Unluckily for her, she had entered Hogwarts with too high standards for children – they were not at all interested in her knowledge or polite intellectual conversation, and she had drifted away.

Her mother carried herself with rare grace. Tall and willowy, she stooped her hug her daughter, squeezing her tightly, whilst the Weasley's made a fuss over their second oldest.

"Charlie," her mother said, "you must come visit us over the holiday's. Good bye Molly, Arthur." Andromeda nodded to them both. She began to walk, her father trailing her trunk behind them, and sensing the mood, the Weasley's began to follow.

Trailing behind them, she said, "Keep in touch."

"Yeah. Yeah, course I will," he hugged her awkwardly as they reached the barrier. They would be driving home, whilst the Weasley's would take the floo in the leaky cauldron. "I'll miss you, Dora."

"Maybe you won't have to," she said, and loaded her trunk into the back of the car, "if you come round a few times."

Hands in his pockets, he grinned. "Okay, I'll owl you or something."

She nodded tightly, and swung into the back seat. The weasley's had reached the end of the road. "Speak soon, Charlie."

He waved as they rounded the corner, his bright red hair the last thing she saw before returning to a place she called her second home.


End file.
